Silly question, but how do you reach the quarter-finals of a tournament without playing? I asked myself this morning on the 7:32 train, because the carriage was asleep. Arthur Fils, top seed at the European Open, is in the quarter-finals at the ING Arena. He hasn’t played a point. Not one. I checked twice.
Here is how it works, in order. First, Fils had a bye in the first round. I’m told the top seeds get that right: they wait while the others sort themselves out. Fine. On Monday, Jaume Munar, world number 51, beat Italian Federico Cina, ranked 135th and a qualifier, 6-4, 6-3. So he had earned the right to play Fils in the last 16, on Wednesday according to Tennis Actu. And on Tuesday, Munar withdrew from the rest of the tournament. Nobody said why.
Result: Fils is the first player into the quarter-finals. The first. First to arrive, without having run.
I wondered what he had done with his days. Does he warm up anyway, just in case? Does someone message him to say he won? Did he unpack his rackets? I held out my notebook to a colleague, please, so he could note down his guesses. He wrote “yes” next to every one.
It’s very simple: a withdrawal is a win. Me, in Kitzbühel, in ’92, I had one. Well, it was almost a withdrawal.
In the quarter-finals, Fils will face American Alex Michelsen, world number 37 and fifth seed, or the winner of the first-round match between David Goffin, who is playing the last tournament of his career, and Swiss Remy Bertola, a lucky loser from qualifying. Lucky loser: a loser who is lucky. I found the definition. I didn’t know you could be both at the same time.
So in the same draw there is a player who lost and is still playing, and a player who hasn’t played and is already in the quarter-finals. Fils, world number 22, is in the race for the ATP Finals in Turin. He is staying in it, right now, sitting down.
Anyway, I still have a lot to learn.
It’s true, we checked: 7sur7.
