Home Wimbledon ‘Fery-tale’ as King Arthur marches on
Ian Chadband |
The amazing adventures of unsung Briton Arthur Fery have reached new heights of improbability at Wimbledon as the local hero became only the second wildcard in history to reach the semi-finals of the world’s biggest tennis tournament.
The 23-year-old, who was brought up as a kid just five minutes away from the All England Club, was again a picture of incredulity after he completely outplayed ninth seed Flavio Cobolli 6-4 7-6 (7-4) 6-0 in front of an ecstatic Centre Court crowd on Wednesday. (Thursday AEST)
It’s a quarter-of-a-century since Goran Ivanisevic became the first wildcard to win the men’s singles, and Fery, the world’s No.114 player, is, amazingly, just two wins away from matching the Croat’s historic 2001 achievement.
Having battled through deciding tie-breaks in comeback wins against Zizou Bergs and Grigor Dimitrov, Fery could hardly believe that it seemed all so easy to defeat the Italian French Open finalist Cobolli, who had dismantled Alex de Minaur’s challenge in the previous round.
With his first ever win over a top-10 player, Fery has become just the fifth British man in the Open era to make the last-four at Wimbledon, joining Andy Murray, Tim Henman, Roger Taylor and, most recently, Cameron Norrie, who he’ll surpass next week to become the national No.1.
“It just gets better and better every match. Can’t believe it. It’s incredible, just can’t believe it,” sighed Fery, who will turn 24 on the day of the final on Sunday.
“It will only get harder for Fery in Thursday’s (Friday AEST) semi-final when he must face French Open champion Alexander Zverev, who, while the Centre Court was following the latest chapter of the British ‘Fery-tale’, was overpowering American Taylor Fritz 6-4 6-4 6-2 on No.1 Court.
Fery, who had won only two tour-level matches before this year’s grass-court campaign, at least went in with the boost of having defeated Cobolli before, in the first round of the Australian Open in January.
But the Italian had been suffering from a stomach bug then, and was expected to be much sharper on Wednesday, especially after his straight-sets take down of Australian No.1 de Minaur on Monday.
Fery was also reminded of the momentous nature of the day as he shook hands with Queen Camilla while waiting to go out on court, before she made her way up to the Royal Box to watch one of the feelgood stories of the British sporting year.
French-born Fery, whose dad is a businessman who runs Ligue 1 soccer club Lorient and whose mother was a former tennis pro, came to Britain with them when he was a toddler and used to regularly wander the few minutes down to the Club to watch the Championships.
But he would never have witnessed scenes like those he found himself at the centre of as he caused another sensation amid wild excitement, breaking the Italian five times in all while only getting broken once himself.
No.2 seed Zverev, though, promises to be a very different proposition as he snapped a seven-match losing streak against Fritz to stay in the hunt for back-to-back majors.
“I knew that I had to play an almost perfect match to have a chance, and I feel like I did that today,” said Zverev.
“I’m extremely happy to be in the semi-finals especially after beating Taylor, who I hadn’t won against in more than two years… I played a fantastic match.”
As for the Fery match-up, he told the crowd with a smile: “You guys can all be for Fery. It’s totally fine. I understand and I don’t have a problem with it. I hope it’ll be good for me, not so good for everyone else.”
AAP