‘I never back down’: Arthur Fils on family, fights and France’s grand slam obsession

The young Frenchman has fought his way back from serious injury into the world’s top 20 and raised expectations for his home slam at Roland Garros

Towards the end of a miserable summer last year, Arthur Fils received a message from a friend imploring him to listen to a song. Fils was soon confronted with the sound of his own name. “My friend sent me the song saying: ‘Look, they are talking about you.’ I listened and I was like ‘Oh yeah’,” he says, theatrically mimicking his excitement. “That’s cool.”

There was a depressing irony to the lyric. The popular French rapper La Rvfleuze repeatedly referenced Fils in the chorus of Serrure #5, likening the noise Fils generates through his performances on the court to the rapper’s impact in his own arena: “Arthur Fils, j’fais du grah sur le court,” he rapped. In reality, Fils’s career was worryingly soundtracked by complete silence.