Arthur Fery reached the first ATP Tour quarter-final of his career on Tuesday, beating Adrian Mannarino 7-6 (9-7), 6-4 at Queen's. The 23-year-old British wildcard had to play through a nosebleed at the start of the second set, then closed out the match to keep his run alive in London.
That win matters now because Fery is the last Briton left in singles at Queen's after Cameron Norrie lost to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Tuesday, and it sends him into Friday's meeting with seventh seed Francisco Cerundolo. For a player ranked world number 140, it is the breakthrough that puts his name into the late stages of a major grass-court week at the HSBC Championships.
Fery said the result was the best of his career, and that judgment carries some weight because he had already produced a bigger-looking upset on paper at Wimbledon last year, when he was ranked 461 and beat 20th seed Alexei Popyrin on the opening day. This one felt different because it came in front of British tennis fans in the city where he grew up, and because it was enough to move him into territory he had never reached on the ATP Tour.
The nosebleed only added to the sense that he had to earn it the hard way. Fery said he is used to that problem because it happens quite often, and that he does not really know why it comes on, whether from nerves, tiredness or heat. He did not stop long enough for it to become the story of the match, but it did show how close the margins were before he settled the second set and finished the job.
John Lloyd has seen enough to think there is more to come. He said he sees no reason why Fery cannot go as high as the top 50, pointing to his pace, his willingness to change pace with the slice and the fact that he likes the big stage. Fery's route through Queen's has already backed up that view: a first-round win over fellow Briton Toby Samuel, then the latest step against Mannarino, and now a quarter-final that will tell us how far this breakthrough can go.
