By KEN MAGUIRE AP Sports Writer
LONDON — If he keeps playing like this, Arthur Fery might just become Wimbledon royalty.
Fery grew up five minutes from the All England Club and now the 114th-ranked player is a semifinalist at the grass-court Grand Slam.
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The 23-year-old British player, who needed a wild-card invitation to enter the tournament, beat ninth-seeded Flavio Cobolli, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-0, on Centre Court in front of roaring home fans and a Royal Box contingent that included Britain’s Queen Camilla on Wednesday.
His run has been dubbed a “Ferytale” and has included a viewing by Kate, the Princess of Wales, earlier in the tournament.
“It gets better and better every match,” Fery said in an on-court interview. “I just can’t believe it.”
The only other wild card to have reached the men’s singles semifinals at the All England Club was Goran Ivanisevic during his run to the Wimbledon title in 2001.
Fery earned a standing ovation after winning the first set. The deafening roar that followed Fery taking the tiebreaker to seal the second set was heard over at Wimbledon’s other main stadium – Court No. 1, where Alexander Zverev was in the process of beating Taylor Fritz in straight sets.
Fery sealed his memorable victory with an ace and fell onto his back to soak in the applause.
“That last game, I felt emotions that I hadn’t experienced before in my life,” he said.
A short time later, Zverev wrapped up his 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win to set up a semifinal against Fery on Friday.
Moments before the start of their quarterfinal match, Fery and Cobolli were surprised to meet Camilla in the hallway moments before they walked onto the court.
“She came to say hello, she introduced herself to both me and Flavio,” Fery said. “It’s obviously an honor to play in front of her. Great to meet her. She had some really kind words to me at the end, as well. Playing in front of tennis legends and now the queen, so it’s special.”
Tennis icon Roger Federer had been on hand Monday when Fery ousted Grigor Dimitrov in five sets in a fourth-round match that was also on Centre Court.
A champagne cork popped in the crowd late in the first set and distracted Cobolli during his service motion. The locals will surely pop a few more with a British player to support in Friday’s semifinal.
The 24-year-old Cobolli, who lost the French Open final to Zverev, made 41 unforced errors to Fery’s 15 and only broke the British player once – to start the second set, but Fery broke back in the fourth game.
“I felt like I didn’t express even 50% of my tennis. But obviously that had a lot to do with him. He was better than me,” said Cobolli, who also lost to Fery in the first round at this year’s Australian Open.
Friday’s other semifinal pits seven-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic against defending champion Jannik Sinner.
ROYAL ENCORE FOR FERY
Camilla wasn’t the only royal rooting for Fery on Wednesday. Princess Kate congratulated him in a social media post that noted his “fantastic achievement that has inspired so many.”
The French-born Fery, who said he feels “very British,” also exchanged pleasantries with Camilla after his big victory.
“She was waiting for me at the end of the match. She congratulated me. I told her how much of an honor it was for me to play in front of her,” said Fery, who turns 24 on the day of the men’s final. “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.”
ZVEREV READY FOR FERY CROWD
The second-seeded Zverev, who dispatched Fritz in just under two hours, recalled being impressed by Fery’s victory over Cobolli in Melbourne.
“I watched that match. I was very impressed back then already. He has a very clean technique and very clean groundstrokes,” said the 29-year-old German, who is also into his first Wimbledon semifinal.
“It’s going to be a great atmosphere,” he said of Friday’s match. “Of course, I know that 99% of the people will be cheering for him. But I also enjoy those kind of atmospheres. I enjoy when the energy is very high.”
KOSTYUK TO MEET NOSKOVA IN SEMIS
Earlier Wednesday, Marta Kostyuk beat Jasmine Paolini, 6-3, 6-2, to reach her first Wimbledon semifinals.
The 24-year-old Ukrainian also reached the last four at the French Open, losing to Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva, the eventual champion in Paris.
Kostyuk raised her hands and dropped to her knees after Paolini scuffed a shot on her second match point. After shaking hands with the Italian, Kostyuk did a pirouette on court.
The 12th-seeded Kostyuk had a sneak peek at Centre Court on Tuesday so that she wasn’t overwhelmed for the match.
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“I was flabbergasted by this entrance and everything inside,” she said in an on-court interview. “I was like, ‘Wow,’ I need one day to recover from what I saw. … I was on this court as (a) spectator once nine years ago watching Roger (Federer).”
Kostyuk will be back on Centre Court on Thursday to face Linda Noskova for a spot in Saturday’s final. Noskova beat Elise Mertens, 6-3, 7-5, on Court No. 1.
It’s the first career Grand Slam semifinal for the 21-year-old Noskova, who improved to 10-1 on grass this season.
“I was a little bit nervous before the match,” said Noskova, who beat American Jessica Pegula in the Berlin Open final in the buildup to Wimbledon. “Usually when it’s really, really important for me and I’m putting a little bit of pressure on myself, that’s when I play the best.”
The other women’s semifinal features American Coco Gauff against Karolina Muchova, who like Noskova is from the Czech Republic. They’re up first on Centre Court on Thursday.
FRITZ BATTLES KNEE ISSUE
Fritz was three games into his quarterfinal against Zverev when his knee tendinitis started flaring up, and the American knew right away he was in trouble.
“I was just like panicking, ‘What am I going to do?’” the sixth-seeded Fritz said. “I just didn’t expect it at all.”
In the end, there was nothing he could do.
Zverev’s serve and the pain in Fritz’s knee were too much to overcome in a straight-sets loss.
Fritz, who reached the 2024 U.S. Open final after beating Zverev in the quarterfinals, has struggled with knee tendinitis in the past. But he had no indication previously at Wimbledon that it might flare up again, aside from a bit of pain toward the end of his fourth-round win over Alexander Bublik.
“I expected, after a light day yesterday, to feel fine today,” he said. “Felt like my warm-up was great. Then, yeah, I have no answers as to why three games in it was like that.”
Fritz took a medical timeout during the second set to have his right knee worked on by a physio, but it wasn’t enough to prevent Zverev from ending a seven-match losing streak against the American.
“He’s beaten me for two years straight,” Zverev, the reigning French Open champion, said. “I played a fantastic match.”
Fritz, also, was quick to point out that the result might have been the same regardless of his knee issue.
“He’s going to be extremely tough to beat the way he’s serving,” said Fritz, who earned four break points in the match but couldn’t convert any of them. “I don’t want to take away from how well he’s playing. … I’m just really sad that I didn’t get the chance to, like, get into it, I guess. I felt like just because I was thinking about the knee, my focus was kind of all over the place.”
KOSTYUK SLAMS IOC DECISION ON RUSSIA
As Kostyuk played on Centre Court on Wednesday, her compatriots in Ukraine were dealing with another deadly attack by Russia on Kyiv.
It’s been the same for much of Kostyuk’s run to the semifinals.
On Monday, after Russian missiles struck residential buildings close to where Kostyuk’s parents live, she had to block that out to play her fourth-round match at the Grand Slam tournament. Last week, Russia hammered the Ukrainian capital with an 11-hour drone and missile attack that killed at least 21 civilians.
For Kostyuk, every day is about finding a way to focus on tennis while not shutting her eyes to what is going on at home.
“It’s not easy to disconnect entirely,” Kostyuk said after beating Paolini to reach the last four at Wimbledon for the first time.
“It was really tough for me last week when the first big attack happened,” the 24-year-old Kostyuk continued. “Then on Monday they ruined like four streets of residential buildings. It was like five kilometers away from where my parents live. Again, another difficult night and a lot of dead people, innocent people, kids. It’s not easy. I try to be aware of everything that’s going on. Of course, I try for these things not to influence me too much.”
The 12th-seeded Kostyuk is in her second straight Grand Slam semifinal after losing to Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva in the last four at the French Open. The two did not shake hands before that match, which has become the standard procedure for meetings between Russian and Ukrainian players since the war broke out in 2022.
Like in most sports, Russian players have competed as neutrals on the men’s and women’s tennis tours since then. But the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday provisionally lifted its ban on Russia and recommended that individual sports drop the neutral status for athletes.
The Kremlin on Wednesday welcomed that decision as an “important step” toward reinstating the rights of Russian athletes.
Kostyuk had a different take.
“My thoughts are that it’s terrible,” Kostyuk said. “I think it’s very, very far from fair play for all the countries involved here, not just for Ukraine. I 100 percent don’t agree with this decision. … I just want to go out there and hopefully beat every single Russian I play in the Olympics.”
Kostyuk is the second woman from Ukraine to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon after Elina Svitolina did it in 2019 and 2023.
Svitolina lost on both occasions. So what would it mean for Ukraine if Kostyuk becomes the country’s first finalist?
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“I’m hoping,” she said, “it would mean a lot.”
AP sports writer Mattias Karén contributed to this story.