With the football World Cup in North America providing a thrilling spectacle, and plenty of other sports taking place too (the Tour de France, cricket, golf and more), it seems that Wimbledon has had a real battle for attention this summer. With Carlos Alcaraz out of the tournament through injury, the prospect of yet another battle between the new big two was removed, while a huge number of Brits fell in the early rounds.
Despite that, both the men’s and women’s singles have provided plenty to keep tennis fans and even occasional watchers of the sport truly captivated. Our focus here is the men’s tournament, and while Novak Djokovic’s attempts to claim a record 25th Grand Slam have enthralled many fans around the world, the story of the championships for UK tennis lovers has surely been the incredible run of Arthur Fery.
Wildcard Makes Final Four
Quite how British Fery is can be debated, but the Wimbledon crowd love an underdog and is generally quick and happy to adopt anyone who wants to play under the British flag. Fery was born in France to two French parents and represented France as a junior. Obviously, that all sounds rather French, but Fery himself does not. He speaks with an English accent, having moved to this country when he was just one month old.
He was raised in Wimbledon and his mother even worked for the Lawn Tennis Association, so it is rather fitting that his breakthrough came at SW19. Fery came to Wimbledon in 2026 as a wildcard and his career earnings up to that point were around $900,00. A few weeks later and just shy of his 24th birthday, he will leave the Championships as a Wimbledon semi-finalist and take home an incredible £900,000.
114th in the World at the Start
A remarkable run comes to an end.
Congratulations on a wonderful Championships, Arthur Fery. #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/7Ah4NxLAy5
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 10, 2026
The Chelsea fan was probably looking forward to watching a lot of the World Cup this year. Arriving at the tournament ranked 114th in the world and having never gone further than the second round at a Grand Slam, he probably expected to have plenty of spare time on his hands during June and July.
Things worked out rather differently, and we suspect the late-night and early-morning kick-offs of many of the games at the 2026 World Cup were not on his radar, with early nights and recovery the order of the day. Only gaining entry to the tournament thanks to the generosity of the organisers, Fery was playing his sixth Wimbledon, although he was eliminated in the qualifying rounds in 2021 and 2022. He lost in the first round in the next two years before finally winning a match in the main draw in 2025 – albeit only one.
In the first round this time around, he immediately doubled his tally of wins by seeing off Damir Džumhur in four sets, losing the first before hitting back in fine style. With the Bosnia and Herzegovina player 34 years old and slipping down the rankings, this was a big win but not a huge surprise.
Another four-set victory, this time over Finnish qualifier Otto Virtanen, saw Fery make the third round of a Slam for the first time. Again, given his opponent was a qualifier, this was not anything to get too excited about, and few were paying the youngster too much attention.
In the third round, however, Fery produced some excellent tennis and showed real grit to beat Belgian player Zizou Bergs. Bergs was ranked inside the top 40, but Fery won a brilliant match in five sets, winning a fifth-set tiebreaker 10-5.
Better was to come in the fourth round, with Fery, by now a firm fan favourite, if only by virtue of being the only remaining Brit in the tournament, beating Grigor Dimitrov in another fifth-set breaker. Dimitrov may have been a wild card too, but this was a player who had been ranked number three in the world once and won the Tour Finals in 2017.
Fery was gaining more and more support and building momentum, but few expected him to beat the number nine seed in the quarterfinals. But he did. With real ease. Flavio Cobolli was the firm favourite, but Fery made a mockery of the rankings to win in straight sets, claiming the third set to love no less!
Zverev Makes Class Tell
Fery would face the second seed and reigning French Open champion Alexander Zverev in the semis. The record books will show that he lost 7-6, 6-2, 6-4, Zverev joining an elite list of players to have appeared in the finals of all four majors. But for most of the first set, it looked like the incredible Fery fairytale might just continue. The underdog had become the first wild card to make the men’s semis since Goran Ivanisevic in 2001, but ultimately Zverev made the gulf in class and experience pay.
The powerful German won the opening set in a tiebreaker, and after he took that 7-0, it seemed clear there was only going to be one winner. Even so, it has been a dream fortnight for Fery, who will leap to 36 in the world and become the new British number one thanks to his exploits on the dry grass of SW19.