British qualifier Arthur Fery defies huge ranking gap to win at Australian Open

When Arthur Fery, the 23-year-old British qualifier, walked out in front of 10,000 fans on John Cain Arena, you might have expected him to feel slightly overawed.

On paper, Fery had one of the toughest challenges of the Australian Open’s first day: a first-round meeting with 20th seed Flavio Cobolli. The ranking gap, 163 places, was the largest of any of the men’s matches on the schedule.

Advertisement

But these early rounds have a way of throwing up surprises – and all the more so when the locker-room is harbouring a virus or two. In this instance, Cobolli was suffering from such drastic gastric turmoil that he had to sprint from the court to the nearest toilet after a lengthy first set.

Fery, by contrast, was a model of focus and athletic court coverage. Yes, he had lucked in with the state of Cobolli’s guts. But he took advantage in such emphatic style that, after two hours and 12 minutes, he was the first man at this year’s Australian Open to celebrate a win.

To well-informed insiders, Fery’s 7-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory was not a total shock. Even if this was his first appearance at an overseas slam, he had surged through qualifying without dropping a set. And if you look at his progress over the last year, he has won 47 of his last 60 matches to climb around 400 places on the rankings ladder.

Now positioned at No 185 in the world, Fery has plenty of admirable qualities, including a steady temperament and an aptitude for finishing points at the net. The main downside is his lack of height. If he claims to be 5ft 9in in his ATP profile, he must have been standing on a dictionary at the time. But he moves beautifully and serves well for a small man, sending down six aces in this match without a single double-fault.

Advertisement

“Of course I was nervous beforehand,” said Fery, who had once climbed as high as No 12 in the world junior rankings. “But at the same time, I came through qualies, I’m playing a guy who is way higher-ranked than me, so I had nothing to lose. And I held my nerve really well in the third set [because] it’s easy to hold back a little bit when you know you’re very close to the finishing line.”

Son of a French hedge-fund millionaire

At an event where British expats are lamenting the injury-related absence of our top player Jack Draper, Fery’s emergence is extremely welcome. But he is unlikely to figure in any egalitarian advertising campaigns promoting the Lawn Tennis Association’s latest slogan, “Tennis Opened Up”.

If Draper hails from a well-heeled background – what with his father being a former LTA chief executive – Fery can do even better than that. He is the son of a hedge-fund millionaire, Loïc Fery, who also happens to own Lorient: a football club in France’s Ligue 1.

Advertisement

Arthur’s ancestry is French on both sides, with his mother Olivia being a former tennis pro whose ranking peaked at No 225 in the world. The family lived in London during his childhood years because of its links to the financial markets, and he attended King’s College School in Wimbledon before taking a tennis scholarship to Stanford University in California.

In doing so, he followed a trend – American college tennis – which unites almost every British male on the ATP Tour except Draper.

This was Fery’s second victory at a major, and both happen to have come against the 20th seed, after he defeated Australia’s Alexei Popyrin in the first round of last summer’s Wimbledon. His next match will pit him against Tomas Martin Etcheverry, the world No 61 from Argentina, who came through a four-hour epic.

Click here to read article