Arthur Fils, the bad patch

The collaboration between Arthur Fils and Sebastien Grosjean, his coach since the end of last season, has not started as well as hoped. The Frenchman, ranked 36th in the world at 19, fell in the first round on Tuesday, on the clay of Buenos Aires. A loss to Dusan Lajovic (6/3, 6/4) that seems to confirm a negative momentum.

The season hadn't started too badly for Fils with a quarter-final in Hong Kong, where he was beaten by Rublev (6/4, 1/6, 6/2), and a semi-final in Auckland. However, there was an initial disappointment in Auckland, where Fils was defeated (6/2, 7/5) by Alejandro Tabilo, then ranked 82nd in the world. It could then be assumed that the Frenchman had conserved his energy a few days before the Australian Open.

But the rest did not confirm this hypothesis, with a defeat as early as the second round in Melbourne, against Tallon Griekspoor (3/6, 6/1, 7/5, 6/4), a result that was particularly disappointing in terms of his attitude. Therefore, there must be a turnaround in positive momentum in Rio next week.