British Player Advances to Wimbledon Semi-Finals
Arthur Fery attributed his success to his strong self-belief after defeating Cobolli 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-0 on Wednesday to reach the last four at Wimbledon.
“That’s just what I’ve tried to do for the past 10 days. Just believe in myself, do the best I can do every match, give myself 100%, and see then where that will take me,” Fery said. “Today especially, because I’ve beaten him in Australia, so I knew I could do it, and yeah, I did.”
Fery entered Wimbledon ranked No. 114 and required a wildcard to participate in the main draw. Prior to this tournament, he had never advanced beyond the second round of a Grand Slam event. His next opponent will be Alexander Zverev, the tournament’s second seed, who defeated sixth seed Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 to secure his place in the semi-finals.
“I’ve always believed in myself and believed that I could be a top player in the world,” Fery stated. “Obviously a semi-finalist of [Wimbledon] is something else. I’ve taken it match by match. I haven’t looked ahead. I’ve just played every match as it is. Here I am.”
Among the spectators on Centre Court was Queen Camilla, who greeted Fery moments before his match and congratulated him afterward.
“She was waiting for me at the end of the match,” Fery recalled. “She congratulated me. I told her how much of an honour it was for me to play in front of her. She just said: ‘Congratulations, keep going.’ I told her it was my birthday on Sunday, so it would be great to play the Wimbledon final on my birthday.”
Fery is only the fourth wildcard in the Open Era to reach the semi-finals of a men’s singles Grand Slam tournament and the second to do so at Wimbledon, following Goran Ivanišević. Ivanišević went on to win the tournament in 2001.
“Never met him,” Fery said. “I knew beforehand that he was the only wildcard to win a grand slam [title]. So it’s obviously an incredible story. I’ve watched the highlights of the final before.
“I’m not going to speculate too much or think ahead of what that could be like. I’m just going to keep thinking ahead about my match on Friday, and then we’ll see how it goes.”
