Arthur Fery will take a well-earned holiday before mapping out the next steps of his much-changed career.
The 23-year-old would have expected to head back to the Challenger Tour and ATP Tour qualifying after Wimbledon but an improbable run to the semi-finals at the All England Club will catapult him to 36 in the world rankings.
That will give him direct entry into all the biggest events and means he has an outside chance of being seeded at the US Open.
The 800 ranking points he has collected for his achievements at SW19 would alone put him in the world’s top 75, guaranteeing him a year of playing on the main tour before he has to think about defending them in 12 months’ time, while £900,000 in prize money more than doubles his career earnings.
Great Britain Davis Cup captain Leon Smith said on BBC Radio Five Live: “It’s completely changed his career, changed his trajectory. He’s on the edge of being seeded at slams. It’s nuts.
“He’s main draw moving forward in the Masters series events, he’s main draw of US Open, he’ll be main draw of Australian Open, French Open because of the points and the way it’s worked, so he’s got this really bright time ahead of him.”
Fery admitted after losing to Alexander Zverev that he is physically and mentally exhausted and his first priority is a break from tennis and to digest the whirlwind he has just lived through.
The Wimbledon resident may sit out the next Masters tournament in Montreal beginning on August 2 but will play the following weeks in Cincinnati and Winston-Salem before heading to New York for his first senior experience of the US Open.
He made his Davis Cup debut last year and could well lead Smith’s team for September’s home clash with Ecuador at the Copper Box in London.
Fery does have some ranking points to defend having risen from 461 this time last year to 189 at the start of 2026, including winning his first Challenger title last August, but those are dwarfed by the possibilities open to him now.
While it is unquestionably an exciting time, Fery, who will turn 24 on Sunday, is very aware of the potential pitfalls that come with a sudden loss of tennis anonymity.
He suggested he might speak to Emma Raducanu, who is one of the few players who can relate, while he cited Monaco’s Valentin Vacherot, who has built steadily after winning the Masters title in Shanghai last autumn as a qualifier, as someone to try to emulate.
Fery has a stable team, led by Dutch coach Jeroen Benard, and he said: “The first part of it is having good people around me who are going to help me in that transition.
“(Looking to) Emma or guys like Vacherot. He’s done an incredible job. He went from 200 to winning a Masters. Suddenly it almost seemed like his base level switched overnight.
“Now that seems like his everyday level. Guys like that, try and take from what they’ve done and do the same.”
Fery’s fairy tale fortnight has made headlines around the world and been followed with close interest by the leading names in the sport, who will now wait to see whether he can back it up.
Novak Djokovic said: “It was a great wild card story. Obviously I think my ex-coach Goran (Ivanisevic) was the last wild card that got very far, actually won the trophy.
“So it doesn’t happen very often that you have a wild card that goes so far – particularly, obviously, a home player from England.
“It’s great for the tournament. It was great for the home crowd. I watched a little bit of the match. Sascha (Zverev) was just too strong. But it was a hell of an effort from him.
“For the future, it’s hard to tell. Things have to come together. But he definitely has shown that he possesses a quality.”
