The French are on fire!

And despite the disappointment at the US Open, Arthur Fils has never been this good, notably winning a Masters 1000 and slightly changing his playing style so that his tennis isn’t too energy-consuming. He was able to recharge his batteries, something that’s now extremely important for him, and here he is coming through qualifying, not without difficulty, and despite his new ranking as world No. 9.

On LVA’s side, he’s also having his best season with no fewer than 5 tournament wins, including an ATP 250 (and 4 Challengers), and on hard courts, clay, and indoor alike.

The two men have played each other officially only once, at the Next Gen Masters, with a win for Arthur. On top of having a higher average level, I think the match-up is quite nice for the 2026 version of Arthur Fils. One or two years ago, he might have had a tendency to overdo it against Luca’s defence, and that’s even on clay. But now, he knows how to be patient and, I’d even say, have fewer dips in level during his matches. This time, though, I wasn’t able to watch his two qualifying matches and he dropped a set each time, and with fairly one-sided scorelines. But I’m not worried. I’ve already seen him do that. He’s dialing things in. And I don’t feel like playing guessing games about “will he be sharp enough against an LVA who is ruthless as soon as you drop your guard” or “will he drop another adjustment set.”