Sports
Tales from the college football sidelines: The ‘ridiculously fun’ life as a ball boy
It was one of the biggest moments in Georgia football history. Players were celebrating. Fans were delirious.
But Bennett Vest had a job to do.
Yes, for all intents and purposes, the game was over when Ohio State kicker Noah Ruggles missed a 50-yard field goal attempt with only eight seconds remaining in the 2022 College Football Playoff semifinal at the Peach Bowl.
But the game wasn’t actually over.
So Vest, situated on the Ohio State sideline, weaved through the maze of dejected Buckeyes and completed his final task: delivering the game ball to the official. Moments later, quarterback Stetson Bennett took one final snap to send Georgia to the national championship game.
Welcome to life as a ball boy.
“Though we may not have a direct impact on the game,” said Vest, who served as a student manager for the Bulldogs as an undergraduate, “we can certainly mess it up.”
It’s an important if largely unseen job that requires timing, quick instincts, athleticism and — as one equipment manager put it — “maturity.”
But it’s also wildly fun, according to those who have done it. And there’s no other gig like it in college football.
“I’m never gonna look at a game the same,” said Ben Shirley, a former manager at Clemson who is now on the equipment staff at UNLV.
“Like, any sport ever again, after doing this.”
College football programs employ anywhere from 12 to 25 student managers, typically undergraduates who work for a stipend. Duties during the week range from practice setup to equipment prep to laundry to … well, anything required to keep the operation running smoothly.
On game day, as many as six managers serve as ball boys — two or three on each sideline. The job requirement is simple: If the game ball is thrown out of bounds or knocked out of play, make sure the officials have a replacement as quickly as possible.
“Kids love it. It’s just exciting for them and there’s really never a better seat in the house because you’re right where the play is, you’re right where the ball is,” said Luke Wyatt, the former head equipment manager at Vanderbilt. “The managers would always politic to see if they could be the ball boy that weekend.”
But working the opposing sidelines comes with more responsibility, as well.
“Over the years, I always tried to put the most mature guys on the (other) side because they’re not gonna run their mouths,” Wyatt said. “You always have to let them know: ‘Don’t interact with the players. When we don’t have the ball, step back out of the way. Don’t get in the way of the coaches coaching the game, or the officials.’”
Former Auburn ball boy Jake Longenecker did his best to behave. But he sometimes couldn’t help himself during his time with the Tigers in the mid-2010s.
“I was kind of a little s—,” he said. “I always found ways to be a smart-ass, I’ll tell you that much.”
Longenecker typically stayed busy when Auburn was on offense. But he had plenty of time for tomfoolery when the Tigers were on defense and the opposing team was responsible for running balls.
“(The opponent is) signaling in plays and I was always aware of where I was standing and sometimes I would try to, on purpose, stand in front of the people calling in the plays,” said Longenecker, the son of two Auburn graduates and a lifelong fan of the program. “They would never like that. They would shove you out of the way and I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing. So go for it.’”
Scott Cochran, the former strength and conditioning coach at Alabama and special teams coordinator at Georgia, had a similar sense of humor. When Auburn played the Crimson Tide, Cochran would often punch the ball out of Longenecker’s hands.
“And he would just be like, ‘Ball security!’” said Longenecker, who works in marketing at James Madison. “He was just joking. (But) it didn’t hurt any less. … I was like, ‘Man, he really works out.’”
Some head coaches enjoy interacting with the opposing team’s ball boys. Others ignore them.
“You’ll get into conversations with coaches on the visiting team sideline,” said Bradley “Spider” Caldwell, a former equipment manager for three decades at Penn State. “Like, (former Ohio State coach) John Cooper one time, he leaned over to one of my managers and he says, ‘Who’s that No. 24 out there?’ So the manager told him who he was. He was a defensive back. (Cooper) says, ‘Yeah, that kid’s not very good. Tell Joe (Paterno) that kid’s not very good.’”
Auburn coach Hugh Freeze doesn’t get into deep conversations with ball boys but likes to thank them for the job they do and will often take a jab about their head coach’s “awful” golf game. Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said ball boys are “always good kids” and bring “special meaning” to the game. But he likes to jokingly tell them before the game starts to “stay the hell out of my way.” San Jose State’s Ken Niumatalolo loves to say hello and ask them about their majors.
And when Clemson hosted Louisiana Tech in 2022, Shirley remembers Bulldogs coach Sonny Cumbie jokingly asking him what plays the Tigers were about to run after they built a double-digit lead in the second half.
“He said it in a way that I could tell that he knew I didn’t actually know. So I just said we were running it, like as a joke,” Shirley said. “And then he actually yelled out to his team that it was a run, also as a joke kind of thing. It was pretty funny.”
Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said there have been a couple of instances when an opposing ball boy has gotten chippy on the sidelines, although that seems to be the exception and not the norm.
“It’s one of those things that may not always make sense, but it’s how we do business,” he said, referring to the oddity of having a couple of representatives from the opponent on your sideline. “Most times when there is or has been (an issue) it resolves pretty quickly.”
Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said opposing ball boys can be distracting, but he always tries to be respectful. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said he doesn’t really notice them.
Both coaches used to be ball boys themselves — Drinkwitz starting as a freshman in high school and Kiffin manning the sidelines as a teenager when his father, Monte, coached linebackers for the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings.
“It was actually a really cool experience,” Kiffin said. “We had to be on the other sidelines for half the game and — I was just telling this story the other day — Mike Ditka’s over there and Jim Harbaugh and Walter Payton.
“I always wanted to come up with a system because I could hear (the opposing team’s) plays over there, but my dad would be on the other sidelines coaching defense for the other team, for the Vikings. And I always thought, ‘I wonder if you could come up with a system where if I heard the play I could tell him the plays somehow.’”
When Steve Spurrier was the coach at Florida, one of Wyatt’s Vanderbilt ball boys asked the Head Ball Coach if he could have his visor.
“He said, ‘Kid, you’ve got a lot of balls. But no. You can’t have my visor,’” Wyatt recalled. “That was really funny.”
At the 2023 Gator Bowl, a Kentucky player offered to exchange his jersey for Shirley’s Clemson pullover.
“I was thinking about that the entire time, the entire game. Like how funny would it be if I came back (to the Clemson bus) with a (Kentucky) jersey?” Shirley said.
One of Wyatt’s favorite memories is from an away game at Ole Miss years ago.
“I was really short on help that day, so I had … one of our policemen running balls — not in uniform, but he was an off-duty policeman,” Wyatt said. “Well, he’s a great big guy. He was like 6-5, 300-plus pounds. So before the game, the officials always meet with the ball boys. They have a meeting to tell them how they want things done.
“Well, he looks up and he goes, ‘OK. You’re the oldest and the largest ball boy I’ve ever seen.’ And James is the guy that’s doing it. He goes, ‘Well look here, ref, don’t start no s— and there won’t be any.’ So it’s a grown man running balls telling the referee that. The referee got a real good kick out of it.”
Nowadays, all teams have their own ball boys working both sidelines, regardless of whether they’re home or away. But in Caldwell’s early days at Penn State, the home team often provided managers to run balls for both teams.
Such was the case in the fall of 1989 when Penn State traveled to upstate New York.
“So we’re playing Syracuse and it’s right before halftime and we’re driving. We’re in field goal range,” Caldwell said. “But we had a little bit more time on the clock and so coach Paterno wanted to get a little bit closer to make it a short kick.”
The Nittany Lions put one more play in — a 5-yard hitch from quarterback Tony Sacca to the tight end. But Sacca threw an interception. Paterno was not pleased.
“He’s yelling at the quarterback, ‘Why did you throw that ball?!’” Caldwell said, imitating Paterno’s distinct voice. “(Sacca) was notorious for excuses. So he’s like, ‘Coach, the football was wet.’”
Caldwell didn’t see the interception. He left the sidelines a few minutes earlier to prepare the locker room for halftime. So when Paterno stormed over to Caldwell in the locker room and demanded answers — specifically, why the football was wet — Caldwell was caught off guard.
“I said, ‘Well, the Syracuse managers are running the footballs,’” Caldwell said. “(Paterno said), ‘What do you mean the Syracuse managers are running the footballs? You’ve gotta get somebody on those. We can’t have that.’ I’m like, ‘OK, Coach, OK.’ And the whole team’s in there now. They’re getting ready to do halftime adjustments and Joe storms out of the room and all of the team’s looking at me and the coaches are standing there and one of the coaches says, ‘Football? Wet? How can a football be wet when we’re playing inside the Carrier Dome?’
“I never even thought about it. So I’m looking over at Sacca like, ‘I’m gonna kill you, you son of a gun.’”
Since that game, Penn State has traveled with eight managers (up from six), with two designated to run balls on the other team’s sideline.
“To (Sacca’s) defense, I guess our center was a sweater,” Caldwell said, laughing. “He did sweat a lot and it was pretty hot in the Carrier Dome … (but) I beg to differ.”
Ball boys may not be blue-chip recruits, but don’t underestimate their athleticism — and fearlessness. This crew is scrappy.
Longenecker, a former high school linebacker, went viral during Auburn’s 2014 game against Arkansas when he somehow kept pace with Tigers wide receiver Melvin Ray on a 49-yard touchdown reception.
Longenecker found out during a weather delay later that afternoon that a clip of his “exploits” had already amassed 4 million views on Vine, the former social media platform. ESPN tweeted out the play, as well.
“Melvin and I had a chuckle about it. I think I did, like, one interview at the time and they asked me why my high school coach never put me at running back,” Longenecker said. “I was like, ‘Because I was slow.’ And I meant it. I still am. It was something that looked good on camera there for like 10 yards.”
Frankie Grizzle-Malgrat, better known as “Red Lightning,” is arguably the most famous ball boy in college football history. He first went viral in the early 2010s when TV cameras caught him sprinting down the sidelines to celebrate a Florida State touchdown.
The man. The myth. The legend.@FSUFootball‘s Red Lightning ⚡️⚡️ pic.twitter.com/76foBPRfk9
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) June 27, 2020
But he may be remembered more fondly for never backing down when he sensed a Florida State player needed his help.
“When someone messes with your brother, you go to their aid,” Grizzle-Malgrat said. “And you don’t really think about the consequences. … You just hope for the best.”
Grizzle-Malgrat is 5 foot 8 … with shoes on. But when former FSU quarterback Jameis Winston threw an interception against Oklahoma State in 2014 and found himself surrounded by Cowboys players — one of whom hit him in the face mask — Grizzle-Malgrat muscled his way in to defend his guy and helped pull the All-American QB out of the tussle.
“I’m a lot, lot smaller than a bunch of them dudes, but you don’t think about it,” Grizzle-Malgrat said, adding that his biggest fear was always getting his glasses broken. “Oklahoma State, one of the big defensive linemen, he elbowed me in the back of the head.”
Similarly, he was there to help Winston up when the quarterback took a late hit against Duke in the 2013 ACC Championship Game.
“Just know that I’m there for you and I’m there to help you up,” Grizzle-Malgrat said. “I’ve got your back.”
Niumatalolo can remember one of his 5-foot-9 ball boys at Navy jumping into a skirmish to help a player in a bowl game on the opposite sideline.
“I said, ‘What happened over there? Did you get in the fight?’ He said, ‘No, Coach, I had to jump in there and try to save so-and-so,’” Niumatalolo said. “I said, ‘Good for you, man! You’re standing in for our players?’ These are small, tiny kids jumping in there trying to fight.”
During Wyatt’s time at Vanderbilt, the Commodores actually needed help from law enforcement on a trip to Arkansas.
“One of my ball boys comes across the field and tells me, ‘Hey, I’ve got a problem. Their strength coach is grabbing me and pushing me around, saying I’m in the coach’s way and all that,’” Wyatt said. “So we had to get the state trooper to remove the strength coach from Arkansas’ sideline.”
And sometimes, there’s even drama between the home and visiting ball boys.
“We were playing at UT (in 2005) and we won the game on a basically last-minute touchdown,” Wyatt said. “We had the ball that won the game for our quarterback (Jay Cutler). We were gonna keep it. And the (Tennessee) ball boy tried to take it and our ball boy ran across the back of the end zone and tackled him. It was pretty funny.”
For as serious as the job can be, it’s ultimately the fun memories that ball boys take with them.
Vest, now in his second year of law school at Samford, had an unforgettable conversation with a group of Ohio State defensive linemen in the second half of the 2022 Peach Bowl, right as the game was coming down to the wire.
“They were asking where all the girls were at,” he said, laughing.
Grizzle-Malgrat, who is now an equipment manager for Florida State’s softball and soccer teams, was at a bar in Virginia Beach for his cousin’s birthday in 2019 when a group of locals recognized him. Even 10 years later, he still fields autograph and photo requests in the grocery store or at a restaurant.
Vest recalls a different sort of interaction with fans at Tennessee.
“In Knoxville in 2021, we even had fans moon us from the stands,” he said.
As Longenecker said, the job isn’t always glamorous. It’s often thankless work that involves long hours filled with laundry, unpredictable weather and endless little tasks.
“(But) I’m alive. I’m healthy. And I’m happy. So I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world,” he said.
Perhaps Dan Leben, a former Vanderbilt manager, summed it up best.
“It is,” he said, “a ridiculously fun thing to do.”
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Photos: Clemson Athletics, Dannie Walls / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, Georgia Athletics)
Sports
Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout
Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.
Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.
Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.
That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.
Not even at home?
“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”
Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.
Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.
“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.
“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”
His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.
In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.
“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.
“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”
For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.
Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.
“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”
Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.
“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.
“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”
Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.
“It’s like win or die.”
It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.
No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)
Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.
“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”
Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.
He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.
Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.
“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.
“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”
At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.
“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.
“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”
So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.
Sports
London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France
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Public unrest began in parts of London late Thursday night, and it appears Morocco’s exit from the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the hands of France is the reason.
France took down Morocco 2-0, eliminating the African country for the second consecutive tournament, this time in a quarterfinal match.
As a result, many feared Paris would erupt into riots, especially after the chaos that followed Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA Champions League victory over Arsenal in May.
Instead, images and videos from Edgware Road in northwest London showed police clashing with large crowds as smoke billowed through the streets and debris littered the roadway.
A police vehicle is parked in a road as people from pro-Palestinian activist groups gather near the Edgware United Synagogue during a demonstration against the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” organized by real-estate agency My Home in Israel, which markets property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in London, Britain, June 14, 2026. (Toby Shepheard)
Riot police, equipped with shields and body armor, tried to contain the crowds as they clashed with people launching fireworks and throwing debris. One video also appeared to show an officer down.
KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, OUSMANE DEMBÉLÉ FIRE FRANCE INTO WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS WITH WIN OVER MOROCCO
It’s unknown what happened to the officer who was down on the asphalt or how he was injured.
Fans waved Moroccan flags in the middle of the streets, which held up traffic. Some even jumped on top of vehicles trying to get through the area.
Moroccan fans in the stands before a FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium July 9, 2026, in Foxborough, Mass. (Richard Sellers/SportsphotoAllstar)
Similar scenes unfolded after Egypt’s World Cup exit, when Argentina rallied for a controversial 3-2 victory that featured several disputed officiating decisions.
Paris, on the other hand, looked more like a city celebrating than one on the brink of a riot. Supporters of both France and Morocco flooded the streets, slowing traffic in several parts of the city.
One video showed horns blasting from cars with French and Moroccan flags out the windows on the L’avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Supporters on the side of the road, waving their own flags, joined in on the celebration.
France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his eighth goal of this World Cup, which ties him for the most with Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Ousmane Dembélé also scored in the second half for France in the 2-0 win over Morocco.
It’s the third straight semifinal appearance for France, while Morocco still made World Cup history despite the loss. After becoming the first African country to reach the quarterfinals and semifinals in World Cup history in 2022, Morocco added to that by becoming the first-ever African nation to reach more than one quarterfinal.
Moroccan fans react while attending a watch party for the World Cup round of 8 match between France and Morocco in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 2026. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
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Morocco’s exit means there are no more African nations alive in the World Cup. France will be taking on the winner of Spain and Belgium, while England and Norway and Argentina and Switzerland face off in the quarterfinals.
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LONDON — A local boy sleeps in his own bed, plays in front of a king and queen and makes a Cinderella run to the Wimbledon semifinals. Sounds like a Hollywood script that might never see the silver screen.
But it’s no fairy tale — it’s Arthur Fery’s out-of-nowhere performance over the last 10 days.
Fery, a virtually unknown British wild card with a triple-digit ranking, has become the emotional heartbeat of Wimbledon while legitimately diverting some national attention from England’s World Cup quest.
The royal treatment at his matches across the All England Club has come in more ways than one.
Fery, who grew up five minutes from Wimbledon and is staying at home during the tournament, first played before grass-court king Roger Federer, Wimbledon’s eight-time singles champion, during Monday’s fourth-round victory. Two days later, he beat No. 9 seed and French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli of Italy in the quarterfinals 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-0 in front of Queen Camilla.
Ranked 114th, Fery had never reached the semifinals of an ATP Tour event, let alone a major, before his brief chat with the queen following the match.
“She just said, ‘Congratulations, keep going,’” 23-year-old Fery told reporters later. “I told her it was my birthday on Sunday, so it would be great to play the Wimbledon final on my birthday.”
That’s still a match away. To get there, Fery will have to get past one of the hottest players on tour: No. 2 seed Alexander Zverev, who is fresh off his first Grand Slam title at the French Open. Looming on the other side of the draw is a highly anticipated showdown between defending champion Jannik Sinner against 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic.
If Fery can continue his magical run to the end, he would become the first British wild card to win a Wimbledon title.
Arthur Fery reacts after defeating Flavio Cobolli in the Wimbledon quarterfinals on Wednesday.
(Maja Smiejkowska / Associated Press)
Born in France, Fery’s family moved to Wimbledon when he was an infant. His mother played professional tennis. He was a top British junior but chose to sharpen his game for three years in the U.S. collegiate system at Stanford, as many of his compatriots have done.
“I came out with a lot of hunger coming out of that, and I was ready to attack the pro circuit,” Fery said.
After struggling with bone bruising in his arm that limited him to playing mostly on the lower-tier Challenger circuit in recent years, Fery is finally healthy and playing consistently.
His path to the last four in London has been a masterclass in clutch come-from-behind performances. The Brit has stared down near-certain elimination in multiple matches, repeatedly breaking his opponents’ momentum with Houdini-like on-court acts.
At 5-foot-9, Fery possesses a skill set perfectly suited for low-bounding grass.
His compact strokes, low center of gravity, and elite movement allow him to hug the baseline, take time away from opponents, and confidently execute delicate volleys at the net, according to ESPN analyst Chris Eubanks.
“He defends well,” said Eubanks, a 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinalist. “He can scrap. He can claw. He can dig his way back into points. And when he ventures forward, he’s very, very comfortable at the net. This is a picture-perfect example of someone whose game is built for the surface.”
Still, it’s hard to fathom the multitude of milestones for Fery, who briefly reached the No. 1 ranking in college and earned 2023 Pac-12 Singles Player of the Year honors before leaving early to pursue a pro career.
He arrived at Wimbledon with just one main-draw victory at a major, a losing record as a professional, and only one previous ATP quarterfinal, at Queen’s Club last month. He’s now 11-8, won his first two five-set matches, and is the first British wild card to reach the Wimbledon men’s semifinals in the Open Era. The only other men’s wild-card semifinalist was Goran Ivanisevic, who won the title as a wild card in 2001.
Fery, who started the season ranked No. 185 and will climb to at least No. 36 after the tournament, said there were a “lot of first times” as he reflected on his unprecedented run. “First five-setter, longest match that I’ve ever played, first time breaking into the top 100, first second week in a slam, all at home, five minutes from where I grew up. It’s a great story for me,” he said.
The gap with his fellow semifinalists is understandably massive.
Entering Wimbledon, Djokovic, Sinner and Zverev’s combined records include 29 Grand Slam titles, 2,088 match wins and 155 tour-level titles. Fery was 6-8 in tour-level matches with zero titles.
But he has singlehandedly lifted the tournament for locals. With top hopes Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu withdrawing before the tournament and the rest of Britain’s singles prospects falling one by one — 18 men and women were eliminated by the third round — Fery became the nation’s last knight standing.
If his first name inevitably evokes Arthurian legend, Fery’s march through the draw gave Britain reason to believe again. No sword, no Round Table, just world-class shot-making, a lion’s heart and a Centre Court crowd thrilled to rally behind him.
“This is really quite something to see on home soil,” said Russell Fuller, the BBC’s tennis correspondent, who compared it with Raducanu’s stunning U.S. Open win in 2021 as a qualifier.
Fery earned every bit of it.
In the first round against Damir Dzumhur, Fery dropped the opening set and trailed by a break in the second before surging back. Against Zizou Bergs in the third round, he faced a 4-1 deficit with a double break in the fourth set, and again fell behind 4-1 in the fifth, before somehow surviving.
Then, stepping onto Centre Court for the first time against former top-10 stalwart Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in the fourth round, Fery clawed out of a 2-sets-to-1 hole and a break down in the fourth set to clinch the victory in a fifth-set tiebreak.
“He carries himself with humility, but he’s a fierce competitor, and he’s got a ton of belief in himself,” said Stanford men’s coach and former top-60 player Paul Goldstein, who flew to England Tuesday to see his former charge compete against Cobolli.
While Fery attempts to outmaneuver Zverev on Friday, the other semifinal features a 2025 Wimbledon semifinal rematch between seven-time Wimbledon winner Djokovic and top-ranked Sinner, who defeated the Serb in straight sets on his way to the title. It’s also their second Grand Slam semifinal meeting in 2026. At January’s Australian Open on hard courts, Djokovic bested 24-year-old Sinner in five sets before falling to now-injured Carlos Alcaraz in the Melbourne final.
Arthur Fery hits a return during his Wimbledon quarterfinal win over Flavio Cobolli on Wednesday.
(Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
Djokovic, 39, enters the match after surviving a grueling five-set, 5-hour-plus quarterfinal slugfest against No. 3 Félix Auger-Aliassime that concluded just minutes before Wimbledon’s 11 p.m. curfew. But the seventh-seeded Serb has a way of defying Father Time and he has had two days to recover on a surface where points are shorter and generally less taxing on the body.
Italy’s Sinner, who defeated Alcaraz in last year’s Wimbledon final, has been efficient if not at the level that saw him capture five consecutive titles before crashing out in the second round at the French Open. After a first-round scare here, the four-time Grand Slam champion has dominated opponents behind his improving serve, winning 80% of his first-serve points. He hasn’t dropped a set since the opening round. Sinner leads the head-to-head with Djokovic 6-5.
According to Eubanks, Djokovic must disrupt Sinner’s movement to break his rhythm, and take his chances.
“He’s got to play similar to how he played in Australia, where it was just all-out aggression,” Eubanks said.
For Sinner, he added: “His serve can be a neutralizing force for what Novak is going to try to do.”
On the other side of the ledger, Fery’s poise under pressure and deft use of the home crowd will be paramount to continue his surprise run against Germany’s Zverev, whom he called a “step up again” from his last five matches. Zverev, 29, is seeking his fifth major final and first at Wimbledon.
“I’m ready for it,” Fery said. “I have nothing to lose. I’m just going to go out there and … put my game on the court, do what I’ve done, believe in myself. We’ll see where that takes me.”
Home has never been closer to Centre Court. Nor has Arthur Fery ever been closer to tennis history.
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