Arthur Fery’s coach brutally yells at Wimbledon star in moment BBC missed | Tennis | Sport
Arthur Fery’s difficult Wimbledon semi-final against Alexander Zverev saw the British hopeful receive an earful from his coach during a change of ends. The BBC’s microphones didn’t pick up the exchange but former pro Todd Woodbridge – working for the broadcaster at the Championships – relayed what happened. “It’s interesting because as Mac (John McEnroe) just said, the ball getting too high on the return so his coach just yelled at him at that change of ends, if you’ve got a second serve stay up, stay where you were for the first as well,” Woodbridge said.
He continued: “I was in this situation myself in a semi, getting outplayed badly by Pete Sampras, and you get to a point where you just have to concentrate every single point, take your time. Last service game he let the shot clock come way down. Plan everything as much as you can and don’t get lost in the emotion of it all. Because a couple of times he’s been really close, he’s looked really frantic. So really just try to settle, play each point on its merit, hang in there, see if he can get to another tie break perhaps and you never know what you might be able to snag.”
Fery was on Centre Court for his first ever Grand Slam semi-final, with No.2 seed Zverev providing the opposition. He took the French Open champion to a first set tie-break but couldn’t get over the line.
After taking that one-set lead, Zverev started motoring and quickly added the second. He benefited from being considerably taller than the Brit and his serve was tough to break.
In the third set, the match looked set to get away from Fery when he trailed 4-2 and 0-40. The 23-year-old was able to restore some pride, though, keeping himself alive a little longer but ultimately losing 6-7, 2-6, 4-6.
Fery was always going to face a tough task on Zverev’s serve. The German had only been broken four times all tournament before stepping out for his semi-final but the younger man made it five during that first set.
After beating Flavio Cobolli in his quarter-final, Fery was asked about his hopes for dealing with a big server like Zverev. “It’s something that I’ve really improved in my game to…more generally being on defence and being more comfortable being on defence,” he said.
“Playing big servers is something I’ve really improved on, accepting sometimes getting aced a lot, and having more pressure on my service games, because I know they run through theirs sometimes easily. I’m a great returner, I think. Just try to apply pressure that way.”
