Novak Djokovic defeated Andrey Rublev

The semi-finals of Wimbledon in the upper half of the men’s grid will be held without the participation of Russian tennis players. Roman Safiullin lost in four sets to world No. 8 Italian Yannick Sinner, while Andrey Rublev lost to Serb Novak Djokovic, who, having lost one set to the Russian, reached the semi-finals of Grand Slam tournaments for the 46th time, repeating the record of Swiss Roger Federer.

An amazing coincidence: it took Andrey Rublev and Roman Safiullin the same amount of time to reach the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in the previous four matches – 10 hours and 42 minutes each. The last meetings with the participation of 25-year-old Russians, who, by the way, played in the same tournaments in juniors, also turned out to be somewhat similar. In any case, it cannot be said that one of them lost his face.

Roman Safiullin for the Wimbledon debutant, who reached the quarterfinals for the first time in the majors, ranked 92nd and met with the eighth racket of the world Yannick Sinner, looked very worthy.

His sharp serve and tight play on the back line gave the Italian a lot of problems, and Sinner’s breakdown in the second set, during which he lost five games in a row, leading 3-1, was completely unsurprising. Watching how Safiullin fearlessly answers the representative of the top ten, often dictating his own conditions in the draws, it was hard to imagine that at the beginning of his professional career, the Russian tennis player was hindered by the relatively low speed of the ball. Now Safiullin’s power is all right and for further progress he needs to cope with another problem – to find in time that line of reasonable risk that allows him to avoid unreasonable mistakes.

However, he lost to Sinner for another reason – due to a lack of experience, to maintain concentration in such important meetings against the backdrop of pressure exerted by a classy opponent. This explains the three double faults made by Safiullin in the eighth game of the third set, as well as the general decrease in percentage indicators in his game in the second half of the match. Sometimes concentration can be restored, but Sinner would never be considered a potential contender for the title of the first racket of the world if he gave Safiullin some time. Feeling that the Russian had given up, the Italian completely took control of the situation and did not give him any obvious chances, having won in 2 hours and 14 minutes. This, however, does not negate the fact that Safiullin achieved a real breakthrough at Wimbledon. According to the results of the tournament, he will rise in the ranking immediately to the 43rd position and, starting from mid-August, will get directly into the main draws of all, even the largest tournaments. Sinner became the first Wimbledon semi-final participant since 1995, who did not meet a single opponent from the top fifty of the world ranking on the way to this stage. True, now he will have to deal with Djokovic himself.

Novak Djokovic and Andrey Rublev, who the 23-time Grand Slam winner says is his five-year-old daughter’s favorite tennis player, were starting their showdown on Center Court just as Sinner and Safiullin exchanged games on Court 1. And the first set was left for the Russian, who, having managed to feel like his own person in the main arena of Wimbledon during the previous tennis thriller with Alexander Bublik, gave Djokovic a lot of trouble with his signature right hand. Moreover, having won back three break points in the sixth game, Rublev then, with the score 4:4, took someone else’s serve and ended the game in his favor. This, of course, required a lot of nervous energy, and it is not surprising that the Russian lost the second set rather quickly. As expected, in such a situation, the third installment became decisive. In the third game, the Russian again gave the pitch, but the most interesting was yet to come. In the tenth game, Djokovic needed to make crazy efforts. On his serve, 18 points were played, Rublev had three break points, and on the second he lacked some millimeters, since the ball, after Djokovic’s second serve, fell into the serve square, hitting the cable badly.

The fourth set also came out spectacular, but the most experienced Djokovic simply could not give up such a match. Breaks in the third and ninth games brought him the victory, which took 2 hours and 48 minutes.

Rublev became the first tennis player in history to lose his first eight quarter-finals at Grand Slam tournaments, and Djokovic reached the semi-finals for the 46th time, repeating the record of Swiss Roger Federer.

In addition, the Serbian has made his 400th Major appearance and still has room to take the lead here as Federer with 429 and Serena Williams with 419 are within his reach.

And before the men’s fights, the first women’s quarterfinals took place, and both ended quite unexpectedly. First, the fourth racket of the world, American Jessica Pegula, lost in three sets to Czech Marketa Vondroushova, who, having the finals of Roland Garros 2019 and the Tokyo Olympics on her account, now occupies 42nd place in the classification of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and has never passed before at Wimbledon beyond the second lap. And then the Pole Iga Swiatek dropped out of the fight – the leader of the world ranking and the favorite of Wimbledon. She was stopped by Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, who resumed her career after the birth of a child only in April and during this time has already managed to win the title in Strasbourg and reach the quarterfinals of Roland Garros. For her, reaching the semi-finals is a repeat of the best result at the London Major.

Evgeny Fedyakov