Arthur Fery characterized his remarkable journey to the Wimbledon semifinals as a testament to his unwavering self-belief, following a decisive victory over ninth seed Flavio Cobolli, with scores of 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-0 on Wednesday.
“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 expressed. “Today especially, because I’ve beaten him in Australia, so I knew I could do it, and yeah, I did.”
Entering Wimbledon ranked No. 114, Fery required a wildcard to compete in the main draw and had never advanced beyond the second round in any Grand Slam event prior to this tournament. He is set to face Alexander Zverev, the second seed and recent French Open champion, for a spot in the final after Zverev’s victory over sixth seed Taylor Fritz, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
Self-Belief and Determination
“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 in the Centre Court crowd 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 noted. “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.”
Historic Achievement
Fery is now only the fourth wildcard player in the Open Era to reach the semifinals of the men’s singles at a Grand Slam event, and he is the second to achieve this feat at Wimbledon, following Goran Ivanisevic. In 2001, Ivanisevic went on to win the tournament.
“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,”
