Arthur Fery believes a last-minute doubles partnership may provide the ticket to the LTA’s Lexus Surbiton Trophy success following a fruitful evening on the grass court.
The 21-year-old banished his singles woes from earlier in the week after falling short in the first round and teamed up with experienced doubles specialist Marcus Willis on Wednesday.
The duo, playing together for the first time, started their doubles grass-court season in style with a straight-set win over Swiss pair Leandro Riedi and Dominic Stricker, 7-6(4) 6-3
And Fery believes his ability to bounce back will serve him well for the rest of the grass-court season.
He said: “It feels good after a tough singles match a few days ago, I’m happy to get back on court here and get a win to start the grass season.
“It’s the first time I’ve played with Marcus and I think we bonded quite well together as a pair so I’m excited to see what we can do this week and further on.
“The partnership was a bit last minute, we both didn’t have partners, mine was injured, Marcus was looking for someone, we said let’s give it a crack this week and see how we do.
“We managed to string good return points together, get a break and then it’s important that we served well and kept things tidy at the net.”
Fery is on the LTA’s Pro Scholarship Programme presented by Lexus, the highest level of support for developing players aged 16-24, designed to help them crack the Top 100.
The Wimbledon native made his Grand Slam debut on the manicured lawns of SW19 last year, facing Daniil Medvedev on Court No. 2.
He will target the LTA’s Rothesay Open Nottingham next week for another shot at advancing further in singles though, for now, his focus remains on curating a solid partnership with Willis.
He said: “Aggression is my game style, especially on grass, there aren’t many ways to really perform very well on this surface, movement around the court is tough.
“I’ve just been practising a lot and there are a lot of things I knew I could work on from my match on Monday so it was just back to work and playing doubles.
“Doubles isn’t too physically taxing so I can put some hours on court around that which is good.
“I’m just trying to set myself up as best as I can for the singles so that’s my priority, it looks like I’m going to play Nottingham and hopefully the other one after that as well.
“Doubles on grass is tricky, it’s super quick, it’s already so fast-paced so on grass as well it’s like the lottery a little bit sometimes.”
For the latest action on the British summer grass court season, check out the LTA website
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