Fery pushes De Minaur all the way before rain and class decide Cincinnati third round

Arthur Fery's run at the 2026 Cincinnati Open ended in the third round on 17 August, the 24-year-old Briton going down 7-5, 7-6(3) to fifth seed Alex de Minaur in a match stretched past two hours by three rain delays (The Guardian).

Fery, seeded 32nd in Cincinnati — a seeding that protects higher-ranked players from meeting each other early — had reached the last 32 with a 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(4) second-round win over Australia's James Duckworth after a first-round bye. The draw handed him De Minaur, the world No 5, on Tony Trabert Stadium Court, scheduled not before 3:00 p.m. local time (ATP Tour).

Rain kept intervening. Play was halted for a third time late in the afternoon, with De Minaur leading 7-5, 5-1 at 5:30 p.m., according to the ATP's official match updates (ATP Tour). When the players returned, Fery clawed back five games in a row to force a tiebreak — the shootout used when a set reaches 6-6, decided by first-to-seven points. De Minaur took it 7-3.

The scoreline barely tells the story of the second set. Fery, a game away from defeat at 1-5, reeled off game after game as the light faded and the crowd on the Trabert court grew louder. A break of serve — winning one of the opponent's service games — at 5-5 kept him alive, but De Minaur's sharper tiebreak play settled it.

For Fery, the tournament brought 50 ranking points and $36,110 in prize money (The Guardian). More importantly, it continued a breakthrough summer. The 24-year-old reached the Wimbledon semi-finals in July — the deepest Grand Slam run of his career — and was named in Great Britain's Davis Cup team for the home qualifying tie against Ecuador at London's Copper Box on 19-20 September.

Twelve months ago, almost to the day, Fery won his first ATP Challenger title in Barranquilla, Colombia — a level below the main tour where players build rankings and prize money. The gap between a Challenger title in a coastal Colombian city and pushing the world No 5 on a Masters 1000 showcourt is the gap between a prospect and a contender, and Fery is closing it quickly.

There was an extra thread of British interest in the match. De Minaur is married to Katie Boulter, who is Fery's fellow British No 2 on the respective tours — the Australian's family ties running straight through the British tennis setup.

Elsewhere in the draw, Alexander Zverev dispatched Britain's Cameron Norrie 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the second round to advance (Cincinnati Enquirer), keeping the German on course for a deep run at one of the key warm-up events before the US Open.

For Fery, though, this was not a day to dwell on the loss. He stood a single tiebreak from the quarter-finals of a Masters event against a top-five opponent, fought back from 1-5 in the second set, and made De Minaur — one of the quickest and most relentless players on tour — scrap for every point across more than two rain-broken hours. The Copper Box in September will welcome him back on home soil.