Arthur Fery stands tall to reach Wimbledon third round

There was an unusual interruption during Arthur Fery’s four-set win over Otto Virtanen. Twice a ball kid had to chase a bird off the court, after it decided that the best way to beat the queues snaking around Court 18 was to simply land directly on the court.

Birds were not the only thing flocking to watch Fery, one of the few remaining Brits in the second round, as the Princess of Wales also showed up. Fery admitted afterwards that he was so locked in he didn’t even notice her arrival.

It has been quite the couple of weeks for Fery, who has only ever played 15 Tour level matches and is now sitting at a career high of 106 in the world in the rankings. The Wimbledon local, who grew up only ten minutes away from the All England club, has never made it so far in a Grand Slam. It comes after he made the quarter-final at Queen’s, losing a tight match against Francisco Cerundolo. 

Fery comes from a strong sporting background, with his mother Olivia having been a tennis player who reached a career high ranking of 225, and once played in the French Open doubles tournament. His father Loïc owned FC Lorient, who finished tenth in Ligue 1 last season, until January of this year when he was bought out by Bournemouth owners Black Knight. He remains president of the club with an estimated net worth of £270m. 

At the age of 18, Fery made the decision to go to Stanford to play tennis rather than embarking on the Futures tour. He wanted the academic grounding to fall back on if sport didn’t work out for him, doing a degree in Science, Technology and Society. He is one of a number of players now making strides at a slightly older age, having chosen to take some time studying first.

British tennis players have been afflicted with a lot of bad luck so far this Wimbledon but Fery is the one who seems to have something, or someone, smiling down on him. He would have expected to be playing fourth seed Ben Shelton in this match, until the 6’4” Finnish qualifier Virtanen knocked him out in a five-set thriller.

Virtanen, like Fery, had never made it beyond the second round of a Grand Slam. For both players, this was a huge opportunity, from a financial perspective as much as a sporting one, although admittedly Fery’s family seem to be doing fairly well on that front. Virtanen is no stranger to the grass court, making finals in the Challenger events in Birmingham and Nottingham as well as winning the Junior Doubles title at Wimbledon in 2018. 

Sport is too often boiled down to ideas of pure physically capacity. If you are taller or stronger, have more muscle mass or a faster serve, prevailing logic is that you have a significant advantage. Tennis offers plentiful evidence to the contrary, with Virtanen serving regularly at over 140mph with his 6’4” frame. Fery, meanwhile, at 5’9” was roughly as tall as one of the ball girls this lunchtime. Yet that meant when the ball bounced low, Fery was more dynamic in getting down, with his slice picking up a number of points. Virtanen may have hit ten more aces than Fery with his huge serve, but Fery only gave up one break point on his, which Virtanen took to take the first set.

“Tennis is a sport where all heights can thrive,” said Fery. “In the first round I played [Damir] Dzumhur who is a similar height to me. He doesn’t serve fast at all, and it was a very different game style to Virtanen.

“I tried to return with good quality. [Shorter players] move better than guys who are taller and I see returning as my strength as well as my movement and general court craft.”

With both Jacob Fearnley and Katie Swan losing in straight sets today, Fery is currently the only Brit to make it to the third round – but he is not phased by the idea of representing his nation in that way. The fact both his parents are French, in combination with his lower ranking, has maybe insulated him from the hyperfocus that surrounds British players when they walk out on the grass in SW19.

“I play for myself,” says Fery. “I want to win just for myself. I get along super well with all the other Brits, so I wish them the best, but I’m playing for myself.”

As he hit the winner on Court 18, Fery whipped off his cap and lent into the net in disbelief with his hands over his face. There will surely be a bigger court to come for him when he faces Zizou Bergs, who he last played in Bratislava six years ago as a teenager. 

“I’m not going to speculate but I assume [it’ll be] one of those [bigger] courts,” said Fery in the same understated manner he had conducted his whole press conference. “It’ll be great to have a lot of people watching.”

Photograph by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images