Japan Open: Arthur Fils clinch third tour-level title in Tokyo

Arthur Fils came back from a set down at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championship match on Tuesday to win the crown at the ATP 500 in Tokyo for his second title of the season.

The 20-year-old Frenchman saved a championship point in the second-set tie-break before prevailing 5-7, 7-6(6), 6-3 to earn his third tour-level title after a tough battle which lasted for almost two hours against fellow countryman Ugo Humbert.

Despite playing three hours more than Humbert in Tokyo, Fils overcame physical issues to earn his first win against his compatriot, who was previously 6-0 in tour finals.

“I was feeling, honestly, to be dead on the court,” said Fils after his 5-7, 7-6 (6), 6-3 triumph. “He’s such a great champion—was very tough.”

“Everything in tennis can turn in one second,” Fils noted afterward.

“I’m very happy with the tennis I’m producing,” he said after his fourth Top 20 win of the week. “I’m working a lot, I’m trying to build a lot, my tennis. It’s better and better.”

“I still have to improve, but it’s cool.

“It’s the best passing I ever hit in my whole life, man,” Fils said. “It went so good out of my racquet.”

The only problem is what happened just before Fils took that winning swing.

“When I went to the passing [shot], I got big cramps in the quads and I said to myself, ‘OK, I need to win this one because otherwise I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” he concluded.

Fils defeated four Top 20 opponents during his Tokyo run: Top seed Taylor Fritz, defending champion Ben Shelton, Holger Rune and Humbert. Three of those four wins came in three sets, while his semi-final triumph against Rune was settled in a pair of hard-fought tie-break sets.