{"id":77947,"date":"2025-01-14T08:30:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T13:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=77947"},"modified":"2025-01-12T15:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-12T20:31:12","slug":"arthur-fils-looking-for-a-first-major-run-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/01\/14\/arthur-fils-looking-for-a-first-major-run-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Arthur Fils Looking for a First Major Run in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arthur Fils was about to go two sets to love down to Otto Virtanen on Sunday, before playing a fantastic return game to turn the match on its head. This is exactly the type of win he’ll need plenty of this year. After becoming a 2-time ATP 500 champion in 2024<\/a>, the next step for the Frenchman has to be his first deep run either at a Grand Slam or at an ATP 1000 event.<\/p>\n

Fils has been on a brilliant trajectory for years, finishing runner-up at 2021 French Open<\/a> boys’ singles (to Luca Van Assche), before enjoying a quick rise in 2023 to jump from outside the Top 250 straight into the Top 50 during that season. Last year did feel like his progress slowed down a bit as the consistency just wasn’t going up and he wasn’t producing solid results week in, week out. But with the two incredible tournaments in Hamburg (including a 3-hour and 31-minute win over Alexander Zverev) and Tokyo, the Frenchman reminded us exactly why we were so high on him in the first place.<\/p>\n

Struggling in certain matchups<\/h4>\n

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Matteo Arnaldi, Ugo Humbert – what do these players have in common? They’ve been stopping Fils from progressing any further in many of the so-called “big events” (Grand Slams + ATP 1000s). It might seem a little weird to focus on specific matchups, but based on these rivalries we can identify certain problems with the Frenchman’s game.<\/p>\n

Davidovich Fokina lost to Fils twice in 2024, but was the culprit behind his Roland Garros and Wimbledon opening-round losses in 2023. Matteo Arnaldi leads the head-to-head against him 5-0 with all five matches coming in important tournaments–ATP 1000s, Grand Slams, Olympics. Arnaldi and Davidovich Fokina have something in common. While against other opponents they might often struggle with shot selection and end up spraying errors if they opt for an overly aggressive approach, coming up against Fils they just lock in and know exactly what to do. They shrink the court and don’t have to press much to make the Frenchman overhit.<\/p>\n

Fils is also 1-4 down in the head-to-head to Ugo Humbert, recently getting his first win against him in the ATP 500 Tokyo final. But even that was such a struggle and with his countryman holding a match point to take it in straights, it was a good representation of why this matchup is so tough for the 20-year-old. Humbert’s flat ball coming at his forehand is a nightmare to accelerate through with the extreme grip the Frenchman has on his spin-heavy shot and he’s forced to defend in his deep backhand corner a lot more than he likes (the lefty serves on out wide on the ad-side are nasty for him too, see what Learner Tien did to Fils recently).<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>