Arthur Fils will not be the first Frenchman to register his name on the Masters Next Gen list. Seeded No. 1, Fils was well there in the final, but he came across a real bone in the person of the Serbian Hamad Medjedovic (4-3, 1-4, 2-4, 3-4 [9]4-1).
Fils, however, got off to the best start by winning a first set where the tension was palpable as the two men multiplied their mistakes. Tricky with his backhand (five errors in a row on this shot in three games), Medjedovic held on thanks to his service. Neither man getting a break point, it was necessary to go through the tie-break. Despite two set points, Medjedovic ended up breaking down and exploding his racket.
The Serb, however, recovered very quickly and easily won the next two sets, taking advantage of Arthur Fils who visibly lacked pep. Often poorly placed on the ball, the Frenchman could not show his power on the forehand and too often made mistakes on the backhand. Although he saved a double break point with a somewhat miraculous forehand on the line, he was well down two sets to one.
Son lost his nerve
There was improvement in the fourth set, but Fils still let too many chances slip away. However, he held his serve and pushed his opponent to the tie-break. At first unlucky, like this backhand penalty which caught the boards and transformed into a winning passing for Medjedovic, Fils was going to take advantage of his opponent’s nervousness on his two match points to erase them. In the process, he returned to two sets all at the end of a tie-break longer than the set itself.
The fifth set was cut short when Fils received a penalty point after exploding his racket. In fact, the Frenchman had received a first warning just before for throwing a racket, but had not heard it. The break was well confirmed (3-0) and Fils did not lose his temper during the change of sides. He was no longer going to come back and lost on Medjedovic’s 19th ace.
