As Arthur Fery has raced around the baseline at Wimbledon this week, coming up with the sort of backs-to-the-wall points that have defined his remarkable run to the semi-finals, he has often celebrated with a defiant shout of “allez!”
Wimbledon may have a homegrown hope in the 23-year-old British wildcard, but from growing up just five minutes down the road from the All England Club, Fery’s journey has also been developed elsewhere: the son of French parents, educated at an American college, now playing under a Dutch coach. But not everyone is surprised by his sudden emergence onto the big stage.
Born in Sevres, a Parisian suburb in the southwest of the city that lies a 20-minute drive away from Roland Garros, Fery speaks French as fluently as English. His mother, Olivia Fery (née Gravereaux), was a former professional tennis player who played in the 1991 French Open and represented France in the team tournament that is now known as the Billie Jean King Cup.
His father, Loic Fery, is one of the wealthiest men in France, making his fortune as a private investor and hedge fund manager. In 2009, Fery also moved into sport as he bought second-division French football team FC Lorient. He remains the Ligue 1’s team’s president after their takeover by the Bournemouth owner Bill Foley.
Drawing inspiration from his mother and the annual Championships, Fery was drawn to tennis after his parents moved to Wimbledon when he was young. He attended King’s College in Wimbledon, a public school that currently charges tuition fees of up to £11,940 per term, and briefly represented France in tennis at under-12 level, with his mother travelling with him to tournaments.
Fery explained, however, that there was “no decision to make” when it came to pledging his allegiance to Great Britain, having received support from the Lawn Tennis Association and basing his training as a junior at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, a short drive from Wimbledon. “I was in the system here,” he said. “There was really no question.”
Fery said his parents encouraged him to stay at school and study for his A-Levels when other boys in his age-group were beginning to focus on tennis full-time, some from the age of 14. “Both my parents have really contributed to kind of my development as a tennis player,” he said. “Having that expertise from my mum's side, and my dad knows sport as well, so having that kind of knowledge in professional sport really helped with key decisions.”
At Wimbledon, some of the French newspapers have started to claim Fery as their last remaining hope. France’s own involvement in the singles has been over since Arthur Rinderknech was knocked out by Novak Djokovic in the third round last week. “Personally, I feel very English, and I’ve felt that way for a while now,” said Fery, speaking fluently in French. “But it’s clear that I have strong ties to France. Family, and so on. So it makes me happy too that the French see me as one of their own.”
There was no doubt, though, where Fery’s home tournament would be “He's a true Wimbledon boy,” Fery’s father Loic told the French sports daily L’Equipe. “It's like someone who grew up in Boulogne playing at Roland Garros. He went to school five minutes from here. He's always lived here. He started playing tennis on the courts next door. Naturally, that adds to the emotion. He's often been called ‘the son of’. I'm thrilled to become the ‘father of’.”
Fery didn’t feel ready to play tennis full-time when he turned 18. He decided that going to college in the US could offer a “transition” between juniors and the professional tour, while offering a “back-up” option in case his tennis career did not work out. Stanford, a 40-minute drive from San Francisco on America’s west coast and one of the most prestigious schools in the country, offered Fery what he wanted in terms of academics, as well as a strong tennis set-up that would boost his development as a player.
Arriving for his freshman year during Covid in 2020, Fery majored in science, technology and society. Across his three years at Stanford, he would go on to become the top-ranked college player in the country, the first Stanford student to do so since the American doubles legend Bob Bryan.
Paul Goldstein, the director of the Stanford men’s tennis, said Fery was “unfazed” when he left home and flew halfway across the world at the age of 18 and was “eager” to develop both on and off the court. “Just an extraordinarily mature young man,” Goldstein told the ATP’s website. “Just managed [the transition] seamlessly. The words that come to mind are poise, composure and maturity.”
The influence of the US collegiate route is becoming increasingly prominent in men’s tennis. Not everyone can be like Carlos Alcaraz and shoot to the top, readymade, as a teenager. There are currently five players in the ATP’s top 30 (Ben Shelton, Valentin Vacherot, Francisco Cerundolo, Rafael Jodar, and Arthur Rinderknech) who used the “stepping stone” of the NCAA before turning pro.
In recent years, the US college pathway has also been a boost to the LTA. Cameron Norrie, the British No 1 and former Wimbledon semi-finalist, credited his years at Texas Christian University for giving him the tools he needed to turn pro. Wimbledon wildcards Jacob Fearnley and Jack Pinnington Jones also enrolled at TCU, while qualifier Max Basing followed Fery’s path to Stanford.
“I think it helped me mature, gave me a bit of time without too much pressure,” Fery said. Goldstein said Fery was could be “innovative” while at college, exploring different approaches and taking weight training and mental preparation as seriously as improving his different shots on the court.
Fery left Stanford in 2023 “hungry and ready to attack the tour” but injuries initially held him back. Fery was sidelined by bone bruising in his arm, similar to the problem now affecting Britain’s former world No 4 Jack Draper, and it was a frustrating period of stops and starts.
In April and May last year, Fery withdrew injured from consecutive futures tournaments, the rung below ATP Challengers, in Egypt and Greece, which came while prospective Dutch coach Jeroen Benard travelled with Fery on trial, along with his long-time mentor, the Frenchman Benoit Foucher.
Despite the injuries, Benard liked what he saw. “My first impression was like, ‘Oh, the kid can play?’” the Dutchman said. Fery’s backhand, Bernard said, is “extraordinary, the timing, how he reads the trajectory of the ball, how to place his feet, how to move up towards those balls.”
At last year’s Wimbledon, Fery knocked out the 20th seed Alexei Popyrin in the first round. Then, in January, Fery and Benard had their first big breakthrough together as he qualified for the Australian Open main draw and knocked out the 20th seed Flavio Cobolli, who was Fery’s opponent in Wednesday’s Wimbledon quarter-finals.
But the pattern of injury continued soon after. “Every time he started, he got hurt,” Benard said. He helped identify that Fery’s serving motion may have been causing the problem, and a biomechanist was brought on board, changing the routine. “Clearly that's working out,” Benard said. “Because he doesn't have any pain anymore.”
At 5ft 9in, Fery is accustomed to coming up with different ways to win. He hits a hard ball but can rarely overpower opponents, so looks to use his speed to move into position and take the ball early before advancing into the net to finish points off, slicing and cutting his way through rather than the use of brute force.
Such aggression, though, requires bravery and belief. “He loves the pressure,” Benard said. “It's something he's probably born with.” Fery’s Wimbledon run has seen him twice come down from a break down in the fourth while being a set away from defeat. “He really likes the magnitude of a match, a big stadium,” Benard added.
At Wimbledon, on the biggest stage of all and yet just five minutes away from the house where he grew up, the pieces of Fery’s game and its various influence have come together to form a homegrown story for the ages. Fery is just the sixth British man in the open era to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals, and the first wildcard. Starting the week as the 114th in the world, he is the lowest-ranked Wimbledon quarter-finalist in 14 years.
But to some, Fery’s arrival onto the stage has just been a matter of time. Taylor Fritz, the American sixth seed who is also through to the Wimbledon quarter-finals on the same side of the draw, remembered a training week with Fery in London in November 2024 before travelling to play the ATP Tour Finals in Turin.
Fritz ended up beating some of the best players in the world to reach the final of the year-end tournament, but he still recalls how Fery “consistently cooked” him the previous week. “He was beating me, like, every day,” Fritz said. “I was like, this guy's really good, this guy can play. It doesn't surprise me at all that he's winning.”
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