The sunshine finally appeared over Wimbledon and shone most brightly on Lorenzo Musetti on Wednesday as he continued a magnificent fortnight for Italian tennis by reaching his first Grand Slam semi-final with victory over Taylor Fritz.
However, the injury curse that has blighted this year’s tournament struck again as Alex De Minaur was forced to withdraw before his quarter-final against Novak Djokovic.
The Australian’s despair was also bad news for Centre Court ticket holders who were left with only 61 minutes of singles action to digest — the time it took women’s fourth seed Elena Rybakina to beat Elina Svitolina’s 6-3, 6-2.
Photo: AFP
Big-serving Rybakina, the 2022 champion and favorite to lift the trophy for the second time, was to face Barbora Krejcikova in yesterday’s semi-finals after she beat Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 6-4, 7-6 (4) in a battle of former French Open champions.
The other women’s semi-final was between Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini and Croatian Donna Vekic.
The 22-year-old Musetti initially looked like being overpowered by US big-hitter Fritz, but produced a sublime display of silky all-court tennis to beat the 13th seed 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 and set up a clash with Djokovic.
Photo: Reuters
It is only the second time in history that an Italian man and woman have reached the semi-finals at a Grand Slam, the first coming last month when Paolini and Jannik Sinner reached the last four at the French Open.
“I don’t realize yet what I’ve done. First of all I want to thank all the Italian crowd who are here to support us,” the 25th seed Musetti said.
“We were joking about trying to play to the big stage at Wimbledon. I’ve never tried Court One and Centre Court. I played a fantastic match, because Taylor was in great shape,” he said.
While Musetti was making hay in the sunshine, seven-time champion Djokovic was left redundant after De Minaur was forced out with a hip injury he had late on his match against Frenchman Arthur Fils on Monday.
“I’m devastated to pull out due to a hip injury, a little tear of the fibre cartilage that is at the end of or connects to the adductor,” ninth seed De Minaur told reporters.
“I felt a loud crack during the last three points of my match against Fils and got a scan yesterday, and it confirmed this was the injury and with high risk of making it worse if I was to step on court,” he added.
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgium’s Elise Mertens qualified for women’s doubles semi-finals after beating the US’ Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula 6-2, 6-1. The duo are to play against the Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova and the US’ Taylor Townsend today.
Hsieh and Poland’s Jan Zielinski in mixed doubles beat Britain’s Heather Watson and Joe Salisbury 7-6 (4), 6-4 to reach quarter-finals. At press time last night, they were to face Townsend and Britain’s Jamie Murray.
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