News
Thierry Tulasne: only Alcaraz and Sinner above Arthur Fils
Arthur Fils moved into the world top 10 on Monday, at number nine. For Thierry Tulasne, a top-10 player forty years ago, only Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner stand above the French number 1 over a full season. The unknown: five-set matches.
“ […] I only see Alcaraz and Sinner above him, over a full season, to aim for world number one, even if Arthur can very well beat them in a single match. ” The words are Thierry Tulasne’s, in L’Équipe, the day after Arthur Fils moved up to ninth in the world on Monday. Junior world champion in 1980, world number 10 in 1986, Tulasne took that road forty years before the 22-year-old Frenchman, the thirteenth from his country to reach the top 10.
Tulasne coached Sébastien Grosjean and Gilles Simon when both were top-10 players themselves; he has just taken over Harold Mayot, winner of the 2020 junior Australian Open, with the aim of bringing him at least into the top 100. The comparison with his own career he has already settled: “Arthur has far better potential than mine.”
Far higher than ninth, with one unknown
The projection first. Fils’s season is “exceptional”, in Tulasne’s view, because he “has not played that much”; with a full year, “he will go far higher than ninth”. On his game: “He has everything: attacking tennis, he is very quick, he can defend, he serves very well.”
One doubt remains, and Tulasne pinpoints it: “The only area where, today, there may be question marks in his head is his ability to back up five-set matches. We do not know yet whether he can do that and arrive fresh enough in a Grand Slam quarter-final or semi-final to challenge the best.” His Grand Slam record, so far, follows that line: one fourth round, at Wimbledon in 2024, and never beyond.
A top-10 place just taken, Tokyo already under way
Fils has had no time to celebrate. Sent through qualifying at the Tokyo ATP 500 by an administrative problem, he beat Luca Van Assche in the first round (6-3, 6-2) and waits in the last sixteen for Frances Tiafoe or Kei Nishikori, who is playing the final tournament of his career in Tokyo.
The ranking, in Tulasne’s eyes, is only a base: “The more time he spends in those ranking spheres, the more, I think, he will find the little details that take him towards the top.”