{"id":7762,"date":"2026-04-19T19:23:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T19:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/7762\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T19:23:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T19:23:06","slug":"fils-wins-on-barcelona-clay-with-french-open-looming-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/7762\/","title":{"rendered":"Fils wins on Barcelona clay with French Open looming | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Up-and-coming Frenchman Arthur Fils beat Russian Andrey Rublev 6-2, 7-6 (7\/2) to lift the Barcelona clay-court title on Sunday with Roland Garros just a month away.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old Fils returned from an eight-month injury absence in February and has been in strong form, finishing as runner-up to Carlos Alcaraz in Doha, before breezing to a fourth trophy of his career on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“These eight months have been hard,” he said. “And now here I am winning a tournament again.”<\/p>\n

The result will make him France’s top-ranked male player after showing poise and maturity to negotiate his way to this ATP 500 title, including fighting from a set down to beat Spanish hope Rafael Jodar in the semi-final.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, he went 2-0 down in the first set before finding his serve and a flurry of winning shots to win the first set 6-2, unnerving the 28-year-old Rublev.<\/p>\n

In the second set, he blew four tournament points, sending the set to a tie-break, where he regained his nerve and had Rublev running around for a comfortable 7-2 close out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n \"How
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\n \"Trump
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“It was all in my head at the end. I played very well for a set and a half, but the pressure of the title caught up with me,” he said of the match points that slipped away.<\/p>\n

“At the end, I told myself I just had to put the ball in, and it paid off.”<\/p>\n

Yannick Noah was the last Frenchman to win Roland Garros in 1983, and Fils will be in the spotlight with the 2026 tournament starting on May 18.<\/p>\n

French open champion Alcaraz pulled out of the Barcelona tournament with a wrist problem midweek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Up-and-coming Frenchman Arthur Fils beat Russian Andrey Rublev 6-2, 7-6 (7\/2) to lift the Barcelona clay-court title on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3550,92,710,4984,3696,4985,4989,4991,4983,317,4987,4990,4986,4988],"class_list":{"0":"post-7762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-afp","9":"tag-barcelona","10":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","11":"tag-clay-court-tennis-tournaments","12":"tag-french-open","13":"tag-grand-slam-tennis-tournaments","14":"tag-male-tennis-players","15":"tag-men","16":"tag-olympic-tennis-players","17":"tag-tennis","18":"tag-tennis-people","19":"tag-tennis-players","20":"tag-tennis-segments","21":"tag-tennis-tournaments"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}