French tennis player Arthur Fils entered the top 20 in the world rankings for the first time on Monday following his impressive surge to the Hamburg Open title.
The 20-year-old, who reached the last-16 on the grass at Wimbledon 10 days ago, beat the world number four and tournament top seed Alex Zverev 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 on Sunday to lift his second title on the senior tour.
In May 2023, Fils won the ATP 250 in Lyon and just over a year later, he took more than three and a half hours to dispatch the defending champion to brandish a trophy from an ATP 500 championships.
The victory, which avenged his defeat in last year's semi-final to Hamburg-born Zverev, came with controversy.
Fils, who saved 21 of the 22 break points he faced, used an underarm service late in the match to win a point.
"When the roof was closed I knew it was going to be just a fight, like a dogfight," said Fils.
"You just have to fight until the last point, until the last ball. I've been practising for a long time for this kind of moment so I'm really happy to win it."
Underarm serve
Zverev, 27, who lost a pulsating five-set French Open final to Carlos Alcaraz in June, had been attempting to become only the fifth man to defend the title in the tournament's 52-year history.
"I'm really happy about the way I played during three and a half hours," added Fils. "I think that I did everything to try and win this match.
"I got cramps at 5-5 in the third. I was cramping and tried an underarm serve because I could not serve normally. The crowd took it badly. I don’t care. I won and that’s it."
In the other Franco-German showdown of the day, second seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz beat Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Fabien Reboul, 7-6, 6-2 to claim the doubles title.
