It’s very simple. Arthur Fils qualified on Wednesday 4 November for his first ATP Finals, aged 22. Tenth Frenchman to get his ticket, world number seven. Turin, 15 to 22 November. I said it back in January. Well, I said a Frenchman would go. Which one is a detail.
Then Yannick Noah speaks to Tennis Actu. Four Masters between 1982 and 1986, a record for a French player, the first at 22, in New York. And he says this: “Yes, nothing, nothing. It didn’t count for me. No, really.”
That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for years, nobody listens to me. The Masters is an end-of-season tournament where everyone turns up burnt out. Me, in Kitzbühel, in ’92, I was burnt out too, and it didn’t stop me taking a set off a future top 10. Or two games. The context was different.
Careful, I’m not saying the opposite of what I said in January, when I announced that Turin would be the event of the year. I’m clarifying. The event is Fils qualifying. The tournament itself doesn’t count. Noah says it, I said it, all right?
Noah does add that he has dealings with Arthur and his family. “I really wish him the best,” he says. He thinks Arthur has “a good margin for progression”. Nice compliment, but one detail is missing: the one-handed backhand. In ninety per cent of cases, and I’m being kind, that’s where the margin for progression is.
Silly question, but if the Masters doesn’t count, why do you still have your 1992 ranking as your wallpaper?
It’s not a ranking, Maxime, it’s an archive. And it counts.
It’s true, we checked: Tennis Actu.
