As Arthur Fery continues his meteoric rise at Wimbledon, all eyes will soon be shifting to his milestone semi-final clash with French Open champion Alexander Zverev.
114th-ranked Fery entered the draw with the use of a wild card and had only ever achieved two main draw wins at the major level in his career. The odds of him going deep in the draw were against him, but he has proven everybody wrong, and continues to do so.
After back-to-back five-set wins in which he prevailed in a 10-point tiebreaker, Fery produced one of the best matches of his life to brush aside Flavio Cobolli. The player Zverev defeated in May to win Roland Garros. Fery never looked like he didn’t belong on Centre Court and produced tennis to back this up. Until the tournament, only once had he reached the quarter-final stage of an ATP event.
“I’ve always believed in myself and believed that I could be a top player in the world,” said Fery, who now sits in 36th spot in the live rankings.
“Obviously, a semifinalist at Wimbledon is something else. I’ve taken it match by match. I haven’t looked ahead. I’ve just played every match as it is.”
Fery, who will turn 24 on the day of the final, belongs to a growing list of players who opted to go down the college tennis route before turning professional. Playing for Stanford University, his achievements include being a Two-time ITA All-American (2022, 2023). He then made his ATP debut late in 2024 at the Stockholm Open after coming through qualifying.
When he returns to action on Friday for his semi-final clash, Fery will likely face a trickier task against Zverev than he did against Cobolli. The German has an 11-year career in Grand Slam events and 25 Tour-level titles to his name.
“Zverev is a step up again. I’m ready for it,” Fery assures.
“I have nothing to lose. I’m just going to go out there and just put my game on the court, do what I’ve done, believe in myself. We’ll see where that takes me.”
Zverev’s speedy serve will be one of the tests Fery will face. According to statistics provided by Wimbledon, Zverev is currently ranked second in the men’s draw for serve performance after Jannik Sinner.
“It’s something that I’ve really improved in my game, more generally being on defence and being more comfortable being on defence,” he said.
“Playing big servers is something I’ve really improved on, accepting sometimes getting aced a lot, and having more pressure on my service games, because I know they run through theirs sometimes easily.”
As for Zverev, the upcoming match will not entirely be new territory. He remembers the Brit’s win earlier this season at ther Australian Open, where he also defeated Cobolli.
“I was very impressed back then already. He has a very clean technique and very clean groundstrokes. I thought he was a very good tennis player already back then,” Zverev recounts.
“It’s maybe a little bit of a surprise that he’s in the semifinals. But I think he deserves it. The wins that he had, the way he fought back in a couple of those matches, is great to see. It’s a great story.” He added.
Fery will have the added boost of crowd support in the semi-finals. Something that his upcoming opponent is unfazed about.
“The English crowd here, especially in London, they’re always quite fair. Yes, they can be loud, they can be cheerful, but that’s okay. I don’t mind it at all.” Zverev commented.
The men’s semi-finals are scheduled to take place on Friday afternoon.
