The sun finally came out at Wimbledon and shone brightest on Lorenzo Musetti as the Italian teenager continued his breakthrough fortnight in Grand Slam tennis by reaching the semi-finals with victory over Taylor Fritz.
However, the injury curse that has swept through this year’s tournament reared its ugly head yet again when Alex De Minaur was forced to pull out of his quarter-final with Novak Djokovic.
It also came as a blow to those with Centre Court tickets who were left with only 61 minutes of singles action – the time it took for women’s fourth seed Elena Rybakina to dispatch Elina Svitol- ina 6-3, 6-2.
Rybakina, who has looked back to her big-serving best and is now the huge favourite for a second title here after winning in 2022, will next play Barbora Krejcikova but only because she managed not to stray out of range against Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko on Court Number One during an engaging if erratic first-ever women’s quarter-final between two former French Open champions.
The other women’s semi-final, on Thursday, will feature Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini against Croatian Donna Vekic.
Italian Musetti, 22, appeared on the brink of being overwhelmed by American big-hitter Fritz but displayed a mesmerizing game with an exceptional mix of soft and hard court tennis to beat the 13th seed U.S. player at3-6 7-6(5), in fourth match; simultaneously drawing battle line against Djokovic where he is going to be tested for his new found formidable stature after knocking down Tsitsipas!
Paolini, who is playing in her first Grand Slam singles quarter-final at the age of 25, and Sonego are only the second Italian man and woman to make it through to this stage of a major after they both reached the semi-finals last month in Paris where Paolini made headlines before losing with Jannik Sinner.
I still don’t realize what I’ve done. But first I just want to thank all the Italian crowd who came here for us,” said Musetti, seeded 25th and speaking on-court.
We were having a bit of fun with pretending we have been going to play at Wimbledon I have never played on Court One or Centre Court. I had a great match, because Taylor was playing well.
