British wildcard Arthur Fery described his run to the Wimbledon semi-finals as a product of immense self-belief after he defeated ninth seed Flavio Cobolli 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-0 on Wednesday. The 23-year-old, ranked 114th and granted a wildcard entry, had never previously passed the second round of a grand slam. He will face second seed Alexander Zverev, the recent French Open champion, after Zverev beat sixth seed Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
Fery's self-belief key to victory
“That’s just what I’ve tried to do for the past 10 days,” Fery said. “Just believe in myself, do the best I can do every match, give myself 100%, and see then where that will take me. Today especially, because I’ve beaten him in Australia, so I knew I could do it, and yeah I did.”
Historic wildcard run
Fery is just the fourth wildcard player in the Open Era to reach the men's singles semi-finals at a grand slam, and the second at Wimbledon after Goran Ivanisevic, who won the title in 2001. “Never met him,” Fery said of Ivanisevic. “I knew beforehand that he was the only wildcard to win a grand slam. So it’s obviously an incredible story. I’ve watched the highlights of the final before.”
Royal audience
Queen Camilla watched from the Centre Court crowd and greeted Fery before the match. Afterward, she congratulated him. Fery said: “She was waiting for me at the end of the match. 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.”
Looking ahead to Zverev
“I’ve always believed in myself and believed that I could be a top player in the world,” Fery said. “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.” He added: “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.”
