Arthur Fery maintains rise with fine Cincinnati Open win

A year ago this week, Arthur Fery was battling his way to a maiden Challenger title – an important staging post for any aspiring pro, yet hardly an achievement that would merit a mention in The Telegraph or any other national publication.

But after Fery’s exploits at this year’s Wimbledon, where he became only the fourth Briton to play a semi-final since the turn of the century, he is now competing at a very different level.

In Cincinnati on Saturday, Fery returned to the match court against James Duckworth – a 34-year-old Australian who had played 213 previous matches on the ATP Tour to his own 19. A rugged and resourceful competitor, Duckworth had beaten qualifier JJ Wolf in the opening round, while Fery – the 32nd seed, amazingly enough – had received a bye.

This was a tough assignment for Fery. Even though Duckworth is not especially highly ranked, at No 86 in the world, he had won their previous two meetings and would probably have welcomed this draw as a chance to stop the Fery bandwagon in its tracks.

In the circumstances, Fery’s gritty and hard-earned 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 victory was a fine achievement. He had not played a tournament since that semi-final against Alexander Zverev on Centre Court, over a month ago, and is now suddenly expected to win these matches against unheralded yet capable opponents.

Routine, energy-saving wins are always likely to be in short supply for Fery. Every time he walks on court, he needs to make up for his lack of stature – he claims to be 5ft 9in but looks a couple of inches smaller – with ingenuity and craft. Against Duckworth, he was outmatched on both serve and forehand, but managed to use his excellent backhand and his silky net game to compensate for those fundamental issues.

In steamy and humid conditions that found Fery changing his kit after each of the first two sets, he actually won fewer points than his opponent – by 94 to 96 – but managed to find his best form when he most needed it.

After a tentative second set in which Fery was broken twice, he picked up the pace of his groundstrokes and the accuracy of his first serve in the decider. Then, having forced a tie-break, he found himself a mini-break down at 3-4 before a pivotal point in which Duckworth made the sort of blooper that will have him waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

As Fery’s return of serve looped towards the baseline, Duckworth mistakenly decided that it was flying long, and failed even to offer a shot. That was a huge mental glitch, and it was no surprise when he followed up with a soft groundstroke error to hand Fery a mini-break of his own. From there, Fery produced a smooth forehand approach shot, followed by a decent first serve, and the job was done by the narrowest of margins: 7-4 in the deciding-set tie-break.

While this performance showed Fery’s mental resilience, his strokeplay lacked bite for much of the match, and will need to improve if he is to have any chance against world No 7 Alex De Minaur in the third round.

Fery is now operating in much more exalted territory than he was a year ago. And yet, the irony is that – unless he pulls off a career-best upset on Monday – he will go away from this Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati with a net loss of rankings points.