ATP Tour

How Fery’s eagerness on email kick-started his road to Wimbledon QFs

In some ways, Arthur Fery’s transition from promising junior to 2026 Wimbledon quarter-finalist began with an unsolicited email fired across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 2020, the Briton was at a crossroads in his tennis journey after finishing his studies at King’s College School, coincidentally situated just a few hundred metres from The All England Club in southwest London. Fery had long been considered one of the most promising junior players in the United Kingdom, but it was nonetheless the teenager himself who initiated first contact with Paul Goldstein, the director of men’s tennis at Stanford University in California.

“I got an email from him, so he actually reached out to me initially and I was very excited,” Goldstein, a former Top-100 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, told ATPTour.com after Fery on Monday stunned Grigor Dimitrov to reach the last eight at the grass major. “My recollection [of his story is] he was always one of the top British players from his age group in the U.K., but then there was a time [when he was aged around 14 or 15] when a lot of his peers chose to prioritise tennis over school, and he ended up going to Kings College.

“So he was still trying to balance school with tennis, so maybe it took a bit of a backburner during that period. But he really started to play quite well in his last year or two before going to college.”

Whatever Fery was doing, it was certainly enough to command the attention of Goldstein and the Stanford Cardinal, one of the most consistently successful programmes in college tennis. The initial excitement of the American coach, who notably defeated Novak Djokovic at the 2006 Australian Open before the Serbian earned victory in a rematch later that year at Wimbledon, was reinforced on a trip he took to Fery’s homeland.

“I remember going over to watch him play for the first time after having talked to him for a bit,” Goldstein recalled. “In one of the grass warmup junior tournaments for Wimbledon. It was the week before Roehampton. I watched him play for the first time there and got to spend a little bit of time with him. Then I had dinner with his parents before I went back from that trip. Then fortunately he decided to come to Stanford and we were thrilled.”

_{^{A 17-year-old Arthur Fery in July 2020, shortly before his move to Stanford University. Photo Credit: Alex Davidson/Getty Images for LTA}}

Goldstein’s senses were proven correct. Fery made a big impact in college tennis, where in 2022 he became Stanford’s first nationally ranked No. 1 singles player since Bob Bryan 24 years earlier. The Briton finished with a 58-16 singles record across his three years (2020 to 2023) competing for the Cardinal, and Goldstein also particularly remembers Fery’s impressive demeanour off the court.

“Just an extraordinarily mature young man,” Goldstein said when asked about Fery’s personal characteristics. “I noticed that at the time he got to campus at 18 years old. Really unfazed by the transition of coming from the U.K., 9,000 miles away to a college campus for the first time. He was really unfazed by that transition and just managed it seamlessly. If anything, the words that come to mind are poise, composure and maturity.”

Like most young prospects that opt to play college tennis, Fery headed to Stanford to continue his education while receiving high-class tennis coaching. Yet Goldstein also remembers the Briton as a driven individual who did not simply wait around to be guided by his coaches.

“The other thing that comes to mind with him is innovation,” Goldstein said. “He was always willing, and in fact eager, to try different things to succeed in tennis, and I don’t just mean with his strokes but off the court. With his weight training, with his mental performance training. I say innovative, but really on the cutting edge is what I would say. He really wanted to try things and was a really independent and creative thinker, both on the court and in terms of how he approached being the best player he could be.

“You see that come to fruition [against Dimitrov] with how poised he was out there on stadium court in front of however many people were out there and certainly millions more watching and supporting him. I have to say, just a quality human being. I’ve been working now for 12 years with young men in that 18-to-22-year-old range and just the maturity with which he managed his relationships, with coaches, with peers, with friends, was different.”

With his exploits at Stanford, Fery in 2023 qualified for what is now the PIF ATP Next Gen Accelerator, a programme that offers the best up-and-coming college and junior stars increased access to ATP Challenger 50 and 75 events. Nishesh Basavareddy, Jacob Fearnley, Eliot Spizzirri and Ethan Quinn also qualified for the Next Gen Accelerator that year through college performance: All four of those players have since broken the Top 100, and Fery will join them after Wimbledon regardless of what happens in his quarter-final against Flavio Cobolli.

Goldstein also remembers Fery being focused on breathing techniques and ways to train his eyes, all with the ultimate goal of improving his tennis, while he says he can also see further developments in the Briton’s game since he finished at Stanford and became a full-time pro.

“One of the things that I felt like could potentially be challenging for him as he got on Tour was how he would be able to defend out of his forehand corner,” Goldstein said. “So that’s one of the things that I think has improved the most for him. His backhand was always elite, even in college it was one of the more exceptional shots in the world."

Competing at a career-high World No. 114 this fortnight at Wimbledon, Fery has shown he has the game to escape tough spots even when up against some of the ATP Tour’s finest. Against World No. 37 Zizou Bergs in the third round, he rallied from a double break down in the fourth set and a break down in the fifth set to win both and clinch a win. Against Dimitrov, he twice reclaimed a break in the fourth set before sealing a stunning Match Tie-break triumph.

“I think that goes to the poise and composure,” Goldstein said ahead of flying to London to watch Fery’s quarter-final meeting with Cobolli, whom the Briton upset earlier this year at the Australian Open. “Dimitrov beats so many guys with that slice, especially on a grass court... I don’t just mean how [Arthur] carries himself in between points, but also his composure within a point… Doing it in the fifth set on Centre Court at Wimbledon, with a quarter-final berth on the line, is just amazing.”