Arthur Féry’s Wimbledon run has already gone from nice surprise to full-blown headline act.
The 23-year-old Brit, ranked No. 114 in the world, moved into the men’s semifinals with a straight-sets win over No. 9 Flavio Cobolli, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-0. That result made Féry just the second wild card ever to reach the men’s semifinals at Wimbledon, joining Goran Ivanišević, who went on to win the title in 2001.
For a player who only got his wild-card spot in the main draw just before the tournament began, the climb has been extraordinary. Backed hard by the home crowd, Féry has turned the All England Club into his stage.
Born in Paris in 2002, Féry moved to London shortly after birth. Tennis was always close at hand: his mother, Olivia, played professionally, and he attended a private school in Wimbledon.
He spent three years at Stanford before turning pro, and while he picked up early Wimbledon chances in doubles, it wasn’t until 2023 that he finally broke into the singles main draw. Most of his work since then has come on the ATP Challenger circuit, where he has won ten titles.
This season has brought the biggest step forward yet. After recovering from an arm injury, Féry played the Australian Open for the first time and reached the second round.
He also made his ATP Masters 1000 debut at the Miami Open. By the time Wimbledon arrived, he had climbed to a career-high No. 114 and earned the wild-card invitation that set this whole run in motion.
The path has not been easy. Féry opened with back-to-back four-set wins over Bosnia’s Damir Džumhur and Finland’s Otto Virtanen, with both matches following the same script: he dropped the first set, then won the next three.
He then survived two straight five-setters, both decided in fifth-set tiebreaks. One of those came against Grigor Dmitrov, the former world No. 3 and three-time Grand Slam semifinalist.
By the time he faced Cobolli, Féry had already logged 10 sets and three tiebreaks across his previous two matches. This one was much cleaner, and it also gave him a first: his first win over a top-10 player.
Here’s how the run has unfolded:
Second round: vs. O.
Virtanen (5-7, 7-6(3), 6-3, 6-3)
Third round: vs.
Z. Bergs (2-6, 7-5, 2-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(5))
Fourth round: vs. G.
Dmitrov (7-5, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(7))
Quarterfinals: vs.
No. 9 Flavio Cobolli (6-4, 7-6(4), 6-0)
The reward for all of it is massive. Féry is set to rise to No. 36 in the ATP rankings, which would make him the highest-ranked British men’s player in the world. He’s also in line for £900,000 ($1.21 million USD), more than double his previous career earnings of £647,708 ($868,053 USD).
His name now sits alongside some of the biggest British Wimbledon runs of the modern era. Cameron Norrie was the last Brit to reach the semifinals in 2022. Before that, Andy Murray had been the last to do it since Tim Henman in 2002.
Féry gets a day off before Friday’s semifinal against No. 2 Alexander Zverev, the 2026 French Open champion.
That match comes with the added benefit of rest after two weeks of heavy tennis. In the other semifinal, No.
1 Jannik Sinner will face 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic. Both matches are scheduled for Friday, July 10, with start times still to be determined.
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Novak Djokovic Just Survived A Wimbledon Test That Changes Everything
At 39, Novak Djokovic keeps finding ways to turn the biggest stages into endurance tests, and Wimbledons latest quarterfinal was no exception. He outlasted 25-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime in a five-hour and 15-minute battle, the longest match ever played at the tournament, to reach the semifinal and extend his run at the All England Club despite the kind of physical strain that usually tilts these matches the other way.
The finish came only after Auger-Aliassime pushed the match all the way to a deciding set, forcing Djokovic to dig deep one more time in a setting where every point seemed to carry extra weight. Next comes world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, a matchup that suddenly feels like the sort of test Wimbledon has been building toward all week, with Djokovic again asked to prove that age, fatigue and a relentless draw still do not mean the same thing to him. [Read more 🡒]