KING ARTHUR’S COURT

FILS DEFEATS TIAFOE FOR MAIDEN MASTERS CROWN

By Richard Osborn

Arthur Fils missed nearly eight months last year due to a painful back injury, at times down and out, but never deterred.

Now he’s a first-time ATP Masters 1000 champion, the biggest title of his career a redemptive reward for that unbending inner-belief. On Sunday evening at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, the Frenchman out-slugged American Frances Tiafoe in the Cincinnati Open men’s singles final, winning 6-3, 1-6, 6-0 in just one hour and 28 minutes.

In doing so, Fils, 22, became the youngest French Masters 1000 champion in series history, and the first since his countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won the Toronto title in 2014. He will jump to a new career-high of No. 11 in the PIF ATP Rankings on Monday.

Tiafoe, 28, was back in the title match here for a second time in three years after falling to Italy’s Jannik Sinner in 2024. Like Fils, he was chasing his maiden Masters 1000 title, but it wasn’t to be.

“I’m very happy. It was a tough year last year,” said Fils. “When you get injured, you just think about coming back for these moments. It feels very good to have a trophy next to me, especially a Masters 1000. I never won one before. That’s why I play. I knew I could make it.”

Fils flashed his all-court prowess from the start, often overpowering his opponent with his flat, penetrating shots. Tiafoe, however, managed to turn things around in the second with some shotmaking of his own, and with the crowd behind him soon leveled the proceedings at one set apiece. But after taking a medical timeout prior to the decisive third set, the Marylander was never the same, perhaps dealing with back or hip pain, though he refused to elaborate, or pin his loss on it.

“No, that’s not important,” said Tiafoe. “He won his first Masters 1000. It’s his moment, his Sunday. He got on me early. I had some chances there early in the third and didn’t take them. It’s been a long week. I haven’t played that many matches. Ultimately, I feel great. He got out of trouble there in the third. Tennis is about ebbs and flows, so he ran with it.”

Fils finished with 11 aces to just one double fault, and made good on four of his eight break-points chances. He had claimed their only previous encounter in Miami last year, also in three sets.

After sealing the match, Fils penned ‘WHO’S GONNA TALK NOW?’ on the courtside camera lens, a slap at the online haters who doubted him during his time away from the court. It looks like he’s having the last laugh.

“It’s very easy to criticize that I’m done, that I don’t know how to play tennis, but here we are. I got the title,” said Fils, only the second French men’s champion in Cincinnati in the Open Era after Guy Forget (1991). “I just had to stay positive and to find a way to make it work. Even if I didn’t win today, I knew that being positive was going to help me in the next weeks, at the US Open or on the Asia swing. That’s something very important, I think.”

Fils is now 8-0 versus Americans since the start of the 2025 season, and 9-0 in deciding sets this year.