#NextGenATP Frenchman Arthur Fils advanced to his maiden tour-level final on Friday at the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon, where he clawed past Brandon Nakashima 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(5).

In a semi-final thriller, the 18-year-old Frenchman overcame heavy hitting from the American and cramp deep in the third set to earn the biggest win of his career after two hours and 54 minutes.

Fils, who is making his debut in Lyon, struck the ball with aggression throughout his first ATP Head2Head meeting against Nakashima. The wild card recovered from squandering a match point at 5-4 in the third set and also overcame cramp to reach his first tour-level final.

“It is amazing,” Fils said. “I am really happy with the win today. It was a tough match against a really good opponent. I am looking forward to the next match.”

Fils has enjoyed a breakthrough season on the ATP Tour, having advanced to semi-finals on home soil in Montpellier and Marseille. With his victory against Nakashima, Fils has climbed one spot to fourth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Next Gen Race. He will face Francisco Cerundolo in the final.

The 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals champion Nakashima was aiming to reach his first championship match of the season at the ATP 250 clay-court event. The 21-year-old defeated Diego Schwartzman, Arthur Rinderknech and Tommy Paul en route to the last four.

Earlier, Cerundolo reached his first tour-level final of the season when he defeated defending champion Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-0.

The Argentine was in control throughout the 73-minute clash. The fourth seed opened his shoulders to hit his explosive groundstrokes with power to improve to 2-1 in his ATP Head2Head series against Norrie, who beat Cerundolo en route to the Lyon title last year.

“I think I played one of the best matches of the season,” Cerundolo said. “Yesterday I started not that well and finished really well and that gave me a lot of confidence and today I showed it. I am super happy because it was a tough match. Cam is a great player and I think I played amazingly and I am happy to be in the final.”

Cerundolo is seeking his second tour-level trophy this week, having captured the trophy in Bastad last year. The 24-year-old is up one spot to No. 27 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings following his 20th tour-level win of the season.

Norrie was aiming to reach his third consecutive final in Lyon, having lost against Stefanos Tsitsipas in 2021 before defeating Alex Molcan last year.

The ATP Tour’s finest head to Paris for the second Grand Slam of the season at Roland Garros, where the main-draw action takes place from 28 May-11 June.

Carlos Alcaraz arrives in the French capital as World No. 1, but Novak Djokovic (chasing a record 23rd major title), Daniil Medvedev or Stefanos Tsitsipas could both usurp the Spaniard by the end of the fortnight.

ATPTour.com looks ahead at some of the key storylines across the singles draw and doubles draw at the 2023 edition of the clay-court Grand Slam.

1) Djokovic Eyes Record 23rd Grand Slam: Victory at January’s Australian Open drew Djokovic level with Rafael Nadal on 22 major singles titles and the Serbian has the chance to set a new record in his rival’s absence this fortnight in Paris. Djokovic has not won a title since his Melbourne triumph, but the 36-year-old is a two-time Roland Garros champion and enters this year’s draw with a 20-4 record for the season.

2) Alcaraz Seeks Second Slam Crown: Alcaraz has barely put a foot wrong this season. Despite a shock third-round defeat in Rome to an inspired Fabian Marozsan, the Spaniard has racked up a 30-3 record and lifted four ATP Tour titles. Three of those have come on clay, and the 20-year-old World No. 1 will now aim to transfer his red-hot form onto the surface at the Grand Slam stage.

3) Red-Hot Medvedev To Roll On?: Medvedev completed his emergence as a bona fide clay-court threat by lifting his maiden ATP Tour crown on the surface in Rome. The World No. 2 has won a Tour-leading 39 matches and claimed a Tour-leading five titles this season and has seemingly never been better placed to advance past the Roland Garros quarter-finals for the first time.

4) Four-Way Battle For No. 1: Alcaraz, Medvedev, Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas are all eyeing a double reward in Paris. The current No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings Alcaraz, No. 2 Medvedev and No. 3 Djokovic can all guarantee they occupy top spot on 12 June by lifting the Coupe des Mousquetaires.

Tsitsipas needs to win the title to give himself a chance of reaching No. 1 for the first time, but would also be relying on Alcaraz falling by the third round and Medvedev by the quarter-finals.

5) Top 10 Threats: Former finalists Casper Ruud (2022) and Tsitsipas (2021) hold fond memories of Paris, and both will see Roland Garros as a big opportunity to push for their maiden Grand Slam crown. The same is true of Monte-Carlo champion Andrey Rublev and World No. 9 Taylor Fritz, who has already reached three semi-finals on clay for the year.

6) Young Contenders: A surprise quarter-finalist as a teenager a year ago, Holger Rune returns to Roland Garros at a career-high No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. The 20-year-old Dane is 13-3 on clay for the season, a tally which includes a run to his fourth ATP Tour title in Munich in April.

In 2020, Jannik Sinner also reached the last eight on debut at Roland Garros, where the 21-year-old has reached at least the fourth round on all three of his appearances. The Italian is another consistent performer on the ATP Tour seeking his maiden major triumph.

7) French Out In Force: Ugo Humbert leads a host of home favourites seeking to become the first French men’s singles Roland Garros titlist since Yannick Noah in 1983. Among the locals joining the World No. 38 in the draw are Richard Gasquet and former semi-finalist Gael Monfils.

8) #NextGenATP Hopefuls: Home players also spearhead the #NextGenATP charge in Paris. Eighteen-year-old Arthur Fils and 19-year-old Luca Van Assche are fifth and sixth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Next Gen Race, respectively, and both make their Roland Garros main-draw debuts.

Another top talent from the 21-and-Under category, Ben Shelton, is also set for his first appearance at the clay-court major. The American, who reached the Australian Open quarter-finals in January, had not competed on red clay in his life prior to April. He now has two tour-level wins to his name on the surface.

9) Opening Salvos: The singles draw has thrown up some intriguing first-round encounters. Felix Auger-Aliassime, who pushed Nadal to five sets in Paris a year ago, has won only one match on clay so far this year. The Canadian 10th seed meets another former quarter-finalist, the entertaining Fabio Fognini, first up.

The 14th seed Cameron Norrie will try to maintain his focus in front of a likely partisan crowd when he takes on home favourite Benoit Paire, while big baseline hitting is guaranteed when Madrid finalist Jan-Lennard Struff faces rising Czech star Jiri Lehecka.

10) Stacked Doubles Draw: Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut have not played a tour-level event together since June last year, but the two-time Roland Garros champions reunite for their home Slam. Their rivals in Paris include top seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski, who are chasing their maiden major crown, and defending champions Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer.

Jamie Murray and Michael Venus reached their fourth tour-level final of the season on Thursday at the Gonet Geneva Open, where they moved past Simone Bolelli and Fabrice Martin 6-1, 3-6, 10-6.

The British-New Zealand tandem won 83 per cent (25/30) of their first-serve points to set a title match meeting against top seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer or third seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos.

Murray and Venus, currently ninth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings, have lifted tour-level trophies in Dallas and Banja Luka this season.

Ram/Salisbury Reach Lyon Final
Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury moved to within one win of capturing their first title of the season together at the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon. The top seeds defeated Nicolas Barrientos and Albano Olivetti 7-6(4), 6-3.

The American-British pair will face Nicolas Mahut and Matwe Middelkoop or Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul in the title match. Doumbia and Reboul overcame Robin Haase and Philipp Oswald 6-0, 6-3 in the quarter-finals on Thursday.

Former Top 10 star Lucas Pouille will make his return to Grand Slam main draw action after successfully qualifying for Roland Garros.

The Frenchman, currently No. 670 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, rallied past Austrian Jurij Rodionov 1-6, 7-5, 6-0 on Thursday to earn his place in the main draw.

It is the first time Pouille has won three consecutive matches at any level since September 2021. The 29-year-old thrilled his home fans with a nearly flawless third set in which he broke his opponent’s serve three times and did not face a break point himself.

Two #NextGenATP players also advanced to the main draw. Nineteen-year-old Hamad Medjedovic rallied past Jesper De Jong 0-6, 6-2, 6-2 to qualify for a major on his first attempt. All three of his wins in qualifying came in three sets.

Eighteen-year-old Shang Juncheng defeated Renzo Olivo 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 to improve to two-for-two in Grand Slam qualifying. Earlier this year, the Chinese teen earned his way into the Australian Open main draw and defeated Oscar Otte in the first round.

In other action, Andrea Vavassori defeated Alejandro Tabilo 6-4, 6-4. The 28-year-old did not lose a set in qualifying. The Italian upset former World No. 1 Andy Murray in Madrid.

Moldovan Radu Albot eliminated Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-1 to earn his seventh main draw appearance at Roland Garros. Pedro Martinez, who reached a career-high World No. 40 last May, battled past Facundo Bagnis 2-6, 7-5, 6-0. The Spaniard will compete in the tournament’s main draw for the fifth consecutive year.

Argentine Thiago Agustin Tirante ousted Swiss Dominic Stricker 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 to qualify for the main draw at a major for the first time. Italian Giulio Zeppieri ousted Frederico Ferreira Silva 6-4, 6-1 to qualify for Roland Garros for the second consecutive year.

The Roland Garros draw has thrown up a host of intriguing first-round matchups as the ATP Tour’s finest seek a fast start at the 2023 edition of the clay-court Grand Slam.

With the action set to kick off on Sunday in Paris, ATPTour.com highlights five first-round matches to watch.

[10] Felix Auger-Aliassime (CAN) vs. Fabio Fognini [ITA]
The 10th-seeded Auger-Aliassime faces one of the ATP Tour’s biggest entertainers first up in Paris. The 35-year-old Fognini, an eight-time tour-level titlist on clay and former Roland Garros quarter-finalist, will be a stern opening test for the Canadian, who won their only previous ATP Head2Head meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 2019.

Auger-Aliassime has struggled to find his best level on the European clay this year (he holds a 1-2 record) but is into the quarter-finals this week in Lyon. The former Top 10 star Fognini may have dropped to No. 130 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, but the Italian has made a habit of rising to the big occasion.

[14] Cameron Norrie (GBR) vs. Benoit Paire (FRA)
Few occasions faze the rock-solid Norrie, but taking on the unpredictable Paire in front of a partisan French crowd is sure to test the Briton’s mental resilience. Norrie beat the former World No. 18 on hard courts in Auckland in 2019 and at the 2022 US Open: Can he do it again on the Parisian clay?

[19] Roberto Bautista Agut (ESP) vs. Wu Yibing (CHN)
Bautista Agut has twice reached the fourth round at Roland Garros but will be wary of the threat of Wu, who became the first Chinese ATP Tour champion in history in February in Dallas. Bautista Agut will attempt to exploit Wu’s relative lack of experience on clay in the pair’s maiden tour-level meeting.

Before he beat Richard Gasquet in Rome earlier this month, Wu had never won a tour-level match on clay. Yet the 23-year-old now has three victories on the surface and could make it four when he steps on court for his quarter-final in Geneva on Thursday.

[21] Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) vs. Jiri Lehecka (CZE)
Struff arrives in Paris in red-hot form after he reached the Monte-Carlo quarter-finals as a qualifier and the Madrid final as a lucky loser. Now at a career-high No. 26 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, the German will need to bring his free-flowing best to hold off the 21-year-old Lehecka, a finalist at the 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals.

After his strong display in Milan, Lehecka made his mark on the Grand Slam stage by reaching the quarter-finals at January’s Australian Open. Despite a modest run of results on the clay so far this year, the Czech has the power to compete with Struff from the baseline.

[30] Ben Shelton (USA) vs. Lorenzo Sonego (ITA)
#NextGenATP Shelton’s year of discovery on the ATP Tour continues with his debut at Roland Garros. Shelton had not left the United States prior to last December, but now enters a Grand Slam as a seeded player for the first time. Italy’s Sonego, who possesses one of the most aggressive gamestyles on Tour, will seek revenge for his defeat to the American in Cincinnati last year.

Shelton competed on red clay for the first time in his career, including as a junior, in Estoril in April, and has notched two tour-level wins on the surface. The Australian Open quarter-finalist will look to deploy his big lefty serve to good effect as he looks to kick-start another deep run at a major.