This place has always been home for Arthur Fery. He grew up a mile away from the Wimbledon grounds and went to school nearby. His mother, a former tennis player, is a member here. As a child he would spend his summers strolling the grounds: watching and wishing, inhaling this rarefied air, dreaming of the day when everyone here knew his name.
On a sun-baked Saturday evening, that moment finally arrived. The queues for seats stretched around the block and barely moved all day. Up in the high-rise flats overlooking court 18, residents leaned over balconies and pressed faces up against windows. This year’s Wimbledon finally has a homegrown hero to exalt, and it came after the longest match of the tournament so far: a five-set comeback that stretched credulity and announced the 23-year-old world No 114 as the next big star of British tennis.
For most of the afternoon, the fates threw all manner of obstacles into his path. The sapping heat. Multiple nosebleeds. An opponent ranked 77 places higher than him, with an array of ferocious grass-court weapons. Going down two breaks of serve in the fourth set, and one break in the fifth. And, above all, the pressure of being the last Briton in the draw: the last little soldier on the hill, grimly carrying the angst and self-esteem of an entire nation on his shoulders.
At the moment of victory – 2-6, 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5) over Zizou Bergs of Belgium – Fery crumpled to the grass, every last breath taken from his body. It had been a match of epic dimensions, ill-tempered in parts, not always sparkling in quality (106 unforced errors and 18 double faults between them) but soaked in intrigue throughout. From which Fery emerges as only the fifth British man this century to reach the second week of the tournament, following Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski, Andy Murray and Cameron Norrie. He is also the first British wildcard to reach round four since Andrew Foster in 1993.
“I don’t know what’s going on right now,” Fery said. “It’s going to take some time to digest. Just tried to stay in the match. Just tried to be the best fighter I could.”
There were whoops of delight, loud cheers from the hill and very possibly a few blushes spared at Roehampton. The annual Wimbledon bonfire of the Brits has been more spectacular than usual this year, raising more than a few awkward questions about what, exactly, the Lawn Tennis Association has to show for one of the world’s most lavishly funded programmes.
But perhaps they can wait for now. Of course, Fery is nobody’s idea of a salt-of-the-earth British hero. For one thing, he was born in Paris to French parents, making him a cross-channel Fery. He came through the prestigious US college system and his father – a hedge-fund owner – just so happens to be one of the richest men in France and the former owner of a Ligue 1 football club.
In short, this is not exactly a replicable talent development strategy. But for all his natural advantages, Fery is also built as tough as they come. Bergs – named after Zinedine Zidane by his football-mad father – was one of the most dangerous unseeded players left in the draw, with a booming serve, a solid net game and an ultra-aggressive style that seemed ideal for keeping points short in the heat.
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So it proved in a runaway first set in which Fery was quite simply outmuscled, outmanoeuvred, outclassed. “Play with width,” Fery’s coach Jérôme Bernard urged him at the changeover. “And on your serve, serve for the forehand, not for the ace. You serve for your next shot.”
Then something weird happened. Fery had requested court 18 for this game after his earlier victories here, and as it baked in the afternoon sun, the intimacy and the heat began to generate a kind of roiling madness that swept Bergs up in its spell. Fery started serving more accurately, taking more risks on the return. Bergs’s ball toss started to crack. The double faults began to accumulate, and meanwhile so did Fery’s nosebleeds: breaking up Bergs’s momentum and giving him a rest.
As his control of the match began to slip, Bergs lost his cool. He was warned for spitting on the court. Later, he would blame Fery for celebrating before the end of the point. None of this seemed to do him any favours at all. He gave up a double-break in the fourth set and a break in the fifth, and by the time we reached the 10-point tie-break he was truly fried: the latest player to be sucked into court 18’s curious space-time vortex.
For Fery, this changes everything. Another unseeded player in Grigor Dimitrov or Matteo Berrettini awaits in round four; already he has lifted himself into the world’s top 100, from which he earns automatic entry into the other grand slams. It is perhaps the finest irony that the place so close to home was the one that ended up propelling him on to the world stage.
