Two days earlier, Fils had retired from his Basel quarter-final against Taylor Fritz, trailing 6-2, 2-0. He confirmed it was a muscle problem in his left leg. “But everything is fine, it’s nothing worrying,” he said. He insisted that stopping had nothing to do with protecting his chances in Paris: “It was just so as not to make worse something I thought I had. It was just a precaution. I talked to my team quickly at the end of the set, then we made the decision to stop the match.”
Fils on his body: “a balance that is complicated to find”
Each injury revives memories of last year, when pushing beyond his limits cost him eight months out. This season, he was also sidelined between Rome and Wimbledon, which forced him to withdraw from Roland-Garros. “I’m starting to know my body better and better,” Fils said. “I know that sometimes I must not push beyond the limits. Sometimes I have to be a bit careful, and sometimes I also have to understand that I can push. It’s a balance that is complicated to find, I try to find it every day and my team helps me with that.”
He rejected the idea of a particular fragility. “A lot of young players get injured now, because of the calendar: a lot of tournaments, a lot of back-to-back events, time differences and matches at high intensity all the time,” he said. “I don’t think it’s only me.”
Fils and the Race to Turin: “not an end in itself”
Ranked No. 8, Fils is seventh in the Race to Turin with 3,535 points, in one of the last places for the Nitto ATP Finals (Nov. 15-22), which will be decided in Paris. Flavio Cobolli, sixth, also retired last week, in Vienna. Seeded sixth, Fils will open in the second round against wildcard Kyrian Jacquet or a qualifier.
“Not necessarily more pressure, of course a bit more excitement,” he said. “I’m 22 and I have the opportunity to qualify for the Masters, it’s very positive. If I don’t manage it this year, I’ll do it in the years to come. It’s not an end in itself, even if it would be very, very good to do it this year.”
A first time at La Défense
Fils has never played the tournament in its new home. “It’s the first year I’m playing here, I’ve never set foot on these courts,” he said. “Since the start of the season, I’ve been waiting to play in Paris. I don’t know if the atmosphere will be as crazy as at Bercy, but the arena is huge.”
Speaking to radio reporters afterwards, he said he was eager to play “in front of my family, in front of my friends, at home”, at the end of “a thrilling season”. “If I can have the backing of the crowd, the support of the crowd, it will help me a lot,” he said. “So I’m very, very impatient.”