The key factor that would make Arthur Fils a contender to win the 2026 US Open
The Frenchman significantly improved an area in Cincinnati, leading him to the title... and he will need to maintain this data if he wants to excite his parishioners in New York. What is it about?
The main protagonist of the ATP circuit last week was Arthur Fils. Champion at the ATP Cincinnati 2026, the Frenchman broke a twelve-year drought for tennis in his country, with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Canada 2014 being the last to win a title of such significance. He achieved this by defeating lively tennis names, with variety and changes of pace, but with less power and determination in decisive moments than himself (Cobolli and Tiafoe, similar profiles)... and with a fundamental ally in his tennis that, if he incorporates regularly into his game, will elevate his level and ceiling to limits that will bring him closer to the best rackets on the planet.
Just a week before this triumph, during his match against Rafa Jódar in the quarterfinals of the Canada Masters 1000, some of Fils's shortcomings were slightly exposed. While the Spaniard accelerated easily from the back and closed points with hardly any effort, Arthur needed to infuse his shots with extra power which resulted in many unforced errors. Everything had to be earned from the baseline... because his serve, of course, hardly collaborated for the cause, a weakness completely exploited by an aggressive returner like the one from Leganés.
Fils and a substantial improvement with the serve in Cincinnati: the key to making a quality leap?
Those who watched the final in Cincinnati against Tiafoe were surely surprised by the Frenchman's ease in targeting the lines with his serve. Arthur gave a masterclass in serving, as if he were a completely improved player: a multitude of aces, surgeon-like precision, ability to serve to the T or wide, and great performance on first serves in pressure points. This, of course, reflects on all his tennis: the backing that comes from feeling secure with the serve allows you to press more from the baseline, play more freely, and construct points better without the temptation to overhit the ball.
Are these just feelings, or is it true that Fils's serve has improved? Since the beginning of his partnership with Goran Ivanisevic, the Frenchman indicated that a couple of aspects of his tennis needed a revolution: his defensive capability on the backhand side, becoming increasingly solid and learning to hit running backhands, planting and sliding with the left leg to gain several seconds when recovering, and his serve, which needed to be more lethal and offer shortcuts so he wouldn't always rely on legs and explosiveness as a path to victory. On the clay tour, we saw an Arthur capable of fulfilling the first task... and after several months of work with a luxury coach like Goran (perhaps the best for this task), it seems that he is starting to reap the rewards also in the second.
Where Fils placed his serves in Cincinnati and percentage of points won: great performance in the advantage area.
Fils's improvement with the serve, in numbers
The Frenchman improved in absolutely all possible metrics on the circuit regarding serving, with data that leave no room for doubt. The following table shows how the Frenchman has combined an increase in power on his first serve with greater security and effectiveness through it... although there is one very important piece of data that goes unnoticed and better explains why he was so lethal with his serve.
| Average in Cincinnati | Average in the last year | |
| Aces per match | 6 | 4.9 |
| Double faults per match | 2 | 2.1 |
| % 1st serves in | 61% | 63% |
| % Points with 1st serve | 78% | 75% |
| % Points with 2nd serve | 63% | 57% |
| % Break points saved | 72% | 68% |
| % Service points | 72% | 68% |
| % 1st serves that don’t come back | 46% | 38% |
| % 2nd serves that don’t come back | 30% | 22% |
These figures are no trivial matter: the only aspect in which Arthur's performance has declined is the percentage of first serves in, a sign that he now chooses to take more risks and move away from 3/4 serves that rarely generated advantages for him. Even so, the data we mentioned earlier concerns the precision of Fils's first serve. In Cincinnati, Arthur averaged a distance of 0.523 meters to the lines of the service box; his average over the last 52 weeks is 0.576. His first serve was on average 53 centimeters more accurate, landing very close to the lines and making it difficult for many returners to reach it easily.
To put this data, which may seem minor, into perspective, it is the key reason why Jannik Sinner has stabilized and turned his first serve into an impressive weapon (he is the best on the circuit in this aspect)... and the Italian averages a distance with his first serve of 0.512 meters, that is, just 11 centimeters difference compared to Arthur's data in Cincinnati. It is an astonishing difference, and accompanied by a higher percentage of first serves in, it could unlock a much more complete version of Fils, one that doesn’t need to rely so much on his physicality and legs from the back to find ways to win points. Now it remains to be seen if he can sustain this version in the US Open... or if it stays as just a great summer week.
Data thanks to Tennis Insights / Tennis VIZ.
This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, La gran clave que convertiría a Arthur Fils en candidato a ganar el US Open 2026