‘I don’t celebrate now, I want to go to the semis’ – Clean server Fils edges past Vacherot in Miami quarter-final battle
Arthur Fils is through to the Miami quarter-finals for the second year running, beating compatriot Vacherot 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-4 without dropping a single service game in two hours and 40 minutes. “I don’t celebrate now,” he said. “I want to go to the semis.”
Arthur Fils, Miami 2026 | © Dax Tamargo/Shutterstock/SIPA
French seed No. 28 Arthur Fils defeated Monégasque seed No. 24 Valentin Vacherot 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-4 in the fourth round of the Miami Open on Tuesday evening to reach the quarter-finals for the fifth time in his Masters 1000 career and the second consecutive year in Miami.
Fils, ranked No. 31, will face Tommy Paul, who dismantled Argentinian seed No. 29 Tomás Martín Etcheverry 6-1, 6-3 in this half of the draw where no top-20 player competes anymore.
It was the longest and most testing match of Fils’s tournament — two hours and 40 minutes against a player who had not dropped a set all week — but the Frenchman never surrendered his serve. Not once in the entire match. Fils had arrived here after beating Darwin Blanch 6-2, 6-3 and dismantling Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-0, 6-1.
He held on every single occasion, saving a nervous moment early in the second set before the tiebreak slipped away on a double fault, and then regrouped to break Vacherot at 4-4 in the third and close it out.
“I had one tough game in the first set where I had to save a few break points, and one a bit shaky early in the second,” Fils said after the match. “But in general, the court was fast, sunny and hot — so the serve was tough to return. I think I did a great job.”
The double fault that handed Vacherot the tiebreak momentarily threatened to unsettle him, but Fils had already made his peace with it before the third set began. “I told myself: keep the right mindset, keep the focus, and maybe I’ll get a chance to break him in the third,” he said. “If I started going crazy, no chance.”
He was equally clear-eyed about what it took to close out the match at 5-4. “The goal was to do as well as I did to get myself into that position in the first place. From 0-0 to 5-4, I was doing a great job — so I just had to keep doing the same thing. If I don’t win that game, it’s 5-all and we go again. It’s not a big deal. I just try to relax and reset.”
On what is still missing
Fils has now won ten of his last 12 matches since returning from the back injury that ended his 2025 season, and reached back-to-back quarter-finals in Miami. But he was not in the mood to dwell on that. “I don’t celebrate now. I want to go to the semifinals, you know? I had to do a lot of work. We put a lot of work in with the team. Very happy to be back at that level. Hopefully I will be better.”
It was a telling answer. Fils has never been past the quarter-final stage of a Masters 1000 event. That ceiling is now, once again, directly in front of him.
Vacherot generous in defeat
Vacherot, who had beaten Mariano Navone 6-3, 6-4 and Matteo Berrettini 7-6(5), 6-4, was candid about what made the difference. He felt he had chances, particularly early in the third, but Fils’s serve became increasingly difficult to read as the match developed.
“At the end, on his serve, he was monstrous,” Vacherot said. “Even on the second serve he went for it. I had trouble reading where he was serving — almost all wide, constantly wide. I didn’t even have a chance to try to come back.”
