All good things must come to an end.
For Arthur Fery and the British public, and Novak Djokovic and his Serbian fanbase, it ended earlier than desired.
Key Factors
With a power-packed performance, second seed Alexander Zverev ousted wildcard Fery 7-6(0), 6-2, 6-4 on Friday to enter his first Wimbledon final. The evidence for that was all too stark, for Sinner played his best match of the competition and came up with a serving masterclass — 16 aces, 88% first-serve points won and 61% on the second. In the third stanza, the Roland-Garros titlist broke to love at 2-2, and went on a hot run by claiming the next seven points. Fery stemmed the rot by holding from 0-40 down, with the highlight being two pin-point aces for which he received loud applause. But the 29-year-old silenced the audience and shut the door on Fery in no time with two nerveless holds. Most players who would have received the kind of shellacking that Jannik Sinner gave Novak Djokovic in Friday’s Wimbledon semifinal – 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in two hours and 20 minutes – would have felt morose, incapable, and left to question their life choices.
Though the Zverev-Fery fixture lasted six minutes less, it featured the most competitive set of the day. Zverev was the favourite, but playing to expectations is not always easy, especially on the biggest stages and in front of a partisan crowd. Flavio Cobolli experienced this first-hand in his dispiriting quarterfinal loss to Fery.
The 39-year-old Serb termed the defeat “a good old blow out” and said that he “was half a step late” for every shot. Following the victory, Zverev, who is set to leapfrog the injured Carlos Alcaraz into second position in ATP rankings on Monday, ensured that for the fourth straight year a men’s player would have made the singles final at both the French Open and Wimbledon.
