For a brief moment at the weekend, it looked as if Arthur Fils might come close to emulating the remarkable achievement of Carlos Alcaraz in early 2022, when the Spaniard won the Rio Open despite having to play the quarterfinal, semi-final and final all within 24 hours and all against current or former top 10 players. It was that tournament, more than any other, that announced Alcaraz’s prodigious talent and physical endurance to the tennis world. In going so close to winning the European Open in Antwerp before losing the final in straight sets to Alexander Bublik, Fils showed that he has the prodigious talent to match Alcaraz, if not yet the physical endurance.
A Fine Tournament For Fils
In fairness, perhaps Fils has already had his “Alcaraz moment”, i.e. achieving a remarkable breakthrough tournament victory. That may have come in Lyon earlier this year, in the last warm-up event before the French Open, when he made the most of a wild card to enter the tournament by winning it, beating Brandon Nakashima of the US in the semi-final and Francisco Cerúndolo of Argentina in the final to do so. Both Nakashima and Cerúndolo were seeded for the tournament and ranked far more highly than Fils, yet the young Frenchman, who was only 18 at the time, beat Nakashima in a match tie-break and Cerúndolo in straight sets to claim his maiden ATP title.
The now 19-year-old Fils could not quite match that hugely impressive achievement in Belgium. In Antwerp, he himself was seeded, at No.4, in recognition of his impressive rise up the rankings since the Lyon triumph, and so he benefited from a first-round bye. In the second round, however, he beat Estonia’s Mark Lajal in straight sets (although both sets required tie-breaks to settle them) before dispatching Peru’s Juan Pablo Varillas, a clay-court specialist who obviously struggled to adjust to indoor hardcourt, with almost consummate ease, bageling him in the first set and then comfortably winning the second for a 6-0, 6-2 triumph.
However, it was in the semi-final that the level of opposition and, with it, Fils’ own level of play rose substantially. He faced Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No.1 seed and two-time Major finalist. However, in a repeat of his first match in Antwerp against Lajal, Fils won 7-6, 7-6. As against Lajal and Varillas, what was most impressive was his hugely powerful, accurate, and varied serving, which, if it didn’t produce an ace, was invariably followed by an enormously powerful “plus-one” shot, usually the forehand. He only lost his serve for the first time all week when actually serving for the match against Tsitsipas at 5-4 in the second, but he regained his composure brilliantly to triumph in the tie-break 7-4.
However, it was not only Fils’s serve and forehand that were so impressive against Tsitsipas but his all-round, indeed all-court game. Just like Alcaraz, who, of course, has set the gold standard for young male tennis players emerging in the wake of The Big Three, he is comfortable at the net, as he showed with a succession of superb volleys against Tsitsipas, who could not match his forecourt game. And also, like Alcaraz, he showed that he has a penchant for the miraculous winner, with one “tweener” (between-the-legs) shot from a seemingly impossible position producing yet another missed volley from Tsitsipas and thunderous, indeed almost disbelieving, applause from the Antwerp crowd.
But Bublik Was A Bridge Too Far
Having beaten Tsitsipas, who is still ranked No.7 in the world despite a generally indifferent season after reaching the Australian Open final at the start of the year, Fils should have been full of confidence for the final against Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik. However, Bublik is one of the most difficult opponents for anyone on tour, let alone a relatively callow newcomer like Fils. Described as “The Great Disrupter” by the Amazon commentator Nick Lester, he proved worthy of the title with a succession of aces (interspersed, as usual for Bublik, with the odd double-fault) that prevented Fils from establishing any kind of rhythm on return. And on his own serve, Fils finally faltered, being broken once in each set to allow the Kazak a relatively easy win.
Bublik is one of the trickiest – indeed, one might even say Bublik-iest – players on tour. When he is in form and completely focused, as he was in Antwerp, he is a truly formidable opponent, and he proved that against Fils, eventually winning 6-4, 6-4.
Fils Remains On An Upward Trajectory
Nevertheless, Fils remains on an upward trajectory after a fairly stellar first full season on the ATP Tour. He actually made his ATP debut at the Paris Masters at the end of last season, when he was granted a wild card, but this season he has built on that by winning in Lyon, beating top seed (and three-time Major finalist) Casper Ruud in the Hamburg European Open (he clearly enjoys tournaments with the words “European Open” in their title) and now reaching the final in Antwerp. In the process, he has risen to World No.38, his highest ranking so far.
As a result of his efforts in 2023, which only really lacked a decent run at a Major to consolidate them (he won only one match at the Slams this season, in his home tournament at Roland Garros), Fils can now be considered among the many young male players who will surely be vying with Carlos Alcaraz at the top of the men’s game, at least once Novak Djokovic finally calls it a day (in the next decade or so).
In addition to Alcaraz himself, there is Jannik Sinner, who recently achieved his own breakthrough tournament win at the China Open in Beijing, where he beat Alcaraz in the semi-final and Daniil Medvedev (for the first time ever) in the final; Holger Rune, who may have failed this season to build on his Paris Masters win last year but will surely be revitalized by working with his new coach, Boris Becker; and Ben Shelton, who looks the best of the many young Americans and who won his first ATP title at the Japan Open this weekend.
The point of difference, or USP, for Fils, is that he is French and looks the very best of the crop of young French players (Humbert, Gaston, Moutet, et al) who are trying to replace the last nearly-great generation of French players (Monfils, who also won in Sweden this weekend, Gasquet, Tsonga et al). Precisely because France remains probably the most tennis-obsessed nation on earth, as a legacy of the historic achievements of Suzanne Lenglen and The Mousquetaires (Borotra, Brugnon, Cochet, and Lacoste) nearly a century ago, a French male Major-winner would probably be feted like no other sportsperson on earth.
Of course, there has not been a French male Major-winner in 40 years (and counting), since Yannick Noah triumphed on home clay at Roland Garros in 1983. It would be a bold statement to say that Fils might just succeed in following Noah in a way that Monfils, Gasquet, and Tsonga failed to do. However, on the basis of his fairly spectacular 2023, and in particular his win over Tsitsipas in Antwerp, he may just be the man to do it. And if he does, France would finally have its own King (or Roi) Arthur.
Main Photo Credit: Jerry Lai – USA TODAY Sports
