Arthur Fery loses first final but still inspires on way to US Open

Arthur Fery – so recently the surprise package of Wimbledon – came within a match of adding a maiden ATP title to his breakthrough summer, only to stumble at the last hurdle.

A 6-3, 6-2 loss to Peru's Ignacio Buse was a deflating end to a fine week in Winston-Salem. Even so, it is worth remembering how far Fery has come in such a short time. He came into this season with just one win at either ATP or grand-slam level – a first-round upset of Alexei Popyrin at last year's Wimbledon – and now he will go to the US Open as the world No 33.

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For Buse, the titles have come along like buses: a first ATP crown in Hamburg in May and now this triumph in North Carolina, which shunts his own ranking just ahead of Fery's to No 30. Having grown up on South American clay, he is a dogged competitor who covers the court with speed and agility and barely ever misses a ball.

Fery competed solidly for the first 20 minutes, but at 3-3 he began to feel suffocated by Buse's relentless accuracy. His game fell away in a rush as he lost six games in a row, winning only six points to 24 from his opponent in that spell. There was a brief revival in the second set, featuring Buse's only dropped service game of the match, before the normal pattern resumed and Fery's fightback evaporated.

Fery now faces a 550-mile journey to New York for the US Open, where he will face 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti in his first-round match on Tuesday. It is hardly the ideal preparation. But then, as soon as this very challenging draw came out on Thursday, he may have calculated that he was better off maximising his run in Winston-Salem than rushing back to prepare for a match he will not be expected to win in any case.

While Fery was battling away in North Carolina, a group of his former peers were using his story as motivation as they fought their way through US Open qualifying. The project went surprisingly well, too, as three men – Harry Wendelken, Toby Samuel and Jacob Fearnley – all earned a place in the main draw, thus making this the most successful preliminary week that British tennis has ever had in New York.

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"I've known Arthur for a long time," said Wendelken, who has been drawn to face 21st seed Luciano Darderi on Monday. "What he did at Wimbledon may never happen again. I think it's given us a lot of confidence to see someone who we know, someone who we train with, who we get on well with, do something that incredible

"A lot of people would see him at Wimbledon and be like, 'Oh, is he going to be able to carry on this form?' I know he's been working hard, and to then come to Winston-Salem and make the final of a 250 is … yeah, [it shows] it's not a fluke."

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