Goran Ivanisevic has offered a striking assessment of Arthur Fils, praising the Frenchman’s level and insisting his ceiling is among the very best in the sport.

Fils brought Ivanisevic on board in February, soon after returning from a serious back injury that had ruled him out since August of the previous year. The move linked the 22-year-old with one of tennis’s most respected coaches, a man who helped Novak Djokovic collect nine Grand Slam titles between 2019 and 2024.

Ivanisevic’s own resume carries weight. The Croatian won Wimbledon in 2001, climbed to world No 2, and later guided Marin Cilic to his only major title at the 2014 US Open.

Fils has backed up the optimism with results in 2026. He owns a 23-8 record, lifted the Barcelona Open, finished runner-up in Doha, and reached the semi-finals in Miami and Madrid. His run was interrupted by a hip injury in Rome, which forced him to miss Roland Garros before he came back at Wimbledon.

The Frenchman reached a career-high ranking of 14th in February 2025 and is now 23rd. Even so, his standing in the race to Turin remains strong. Despite missing both the Australian Open and French Open in 2026, he is 10th in the Race to Turin, the season-long system that decides the eight qualifiers for the ATP Finals.

Speaking to Croatian outlet Sportske Novosti, Ivanisevic was unequivocal about Fils’ prospects and said he is “definitely a top five player.”

“I’m super happy, he’s exactly the type of player I wanted to work with,” said Ivanisevic.

“He’s young, he’s one of the biggest talents, someone whose game is enjoyable, he’s attractive, he’s powerful.

“It’s a shame that at the moment when he was in shape he had problems with injuries.

“We found the right people to solve it. He played Wimbledon, it could have been better, but it was great that he played at all.

“I think he’s capable of entering the top 10 by the end of the year, and he’s definitely a top five player. As long as he’s healthy.”

Goran Ivanisevic believes Novak Djokovic has a real chance of making it to the 2028 Los Angeles Games, pointing to the Serbian’s habit of leaving nothing to chance.

Djokovic’s plan to keep playing until LA28 has been met with some skepticism, largely because he will be 41 when the Olympics begin. Even so, his recent results have continued to show that he remains a force at the top of the sport. He was runner-up at this year’s Australian Open and later reached the Wimbledon semi-finals, a run that came soon after he turned 39.

Ivanisevic, who coached Djokovic from 2019 to 2024, compared the veteran’s mindset with that of other elite sports figures, including Lionel Messi and LeBron James. Speaking to Croatia’s Sportske Novosti, he said: “Amazing, they are geniuses, there aren’t many of them. They invest a lot, they take care of themselves, they pay attention to every detail.

“Here, Novak pays attention to the playing schedule and in the end the only question is how much he will have left.”

He added that Djokovic’s path is different because tennis places the burden on one player alone.

“That’s the difference, because LeBron has four others around him, Messi has ten. Novak has to push himself, push his limits, turn up for training and go through the shots he’s hit eighty billion times over again,” he explained.

“And sometimes you have to ask yourself, ‘what the f*** is this for?’ It pulls you back in again, you know you can do it, but, I mean, it’s easier in a team sport.”

Ivanisevic also said Djokovic’s lighter schedule could help him manage the final stretch of his career. “He’s saying he’ll play until the Games in Los Angeles, and we’re talking about two years. Honestly, knowing him, he’s capable of pulling it off with the schedule he’s on, with an incredible, special head on his shoulders,” the 2001 Wimbledon winner said.

“It’s possible. Ultimately, he’s right behind [Jannik] Sinner, [Carlos] Alcaraz and [Alexander] Zverev today, or, you could say, the four of them are a cut above everyone else, so why not?”

Elena Rybakina began 2026 with real momentum, and for a while she looked well placed to mount a serious challenge for the top of the WTA Rankings. She opened the season by winning the Australian Open, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the final, then added the Sunshine Double and later the Stuttgart Open in April.

Those results drew her closer to Sabalenka at No 1 and created a clear path for her to overtake her rival. At the French Open, however, Rybakina missed that chance when she suffered a surprise second-round loss to Yuliia Starodubtseva.

Wimbledon offered another opening, especially after Sabalenka’s quarter-final exit in Paris had kept the race within reach. Yet Rybakina again fell short of expectations at a major, this time going out in the third round to Elise Mertens. That was enough to leave former world No 11 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova puzzled.

“I’m very disappointed that Rybakina loses relatively early in Slams, because she’s world No 2 and she has a real chance to become No 1 for the first time, the gap is small,” the Russian – who reached the quarter-final at Wimbledon in 2016 and 2025 – told Tennis Bolshe.

“Maybe that also puts pressure on her, because I think at Roland Garros all she needed was to win a couple of matches, and she couldn’t. Maybe clay isn’t her surface, but grass – that was strange.”

Rybakina’s route to No 1 is still open, but the margin remains tight. Sabalenka’s quarter-final defeat at the grass-court Grand Slam has left the pair separated by just 407 points heading into the North American swing. Sabalenka has 2215 points to defend over the next two months, including 2,000 at the US Open and quarter-final points from Cincinnati.

Rybakina, meanwhile, has 1,215 points to defend, though she will not add to that total at next week’s Washington Open, where she has chosen not to play. Later in the season, she also faces 1,500 points to defend at the WTA Finals after winning the event undefeated last year.