Jannik Sinner reached his first Grand Slam semi-final on Tuesday when he overcame a mid-match dip to end Roman Safiullin’s run at Wimbledon.
In a heavy-hitting two-hour, 14-minute clash on Court 1, the Italian recovered from squandering a break advantage in the second set against the World No. 92, increasing his level in the third and fourth sets to earn a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory.
Sinner, who is only 21, became the third Italian man to reach the last four at Wimbledon, joining Nicola Pietrangeli (1960) and 2021 finalist Matteo Berrettini.
“It means a lot to me,” Sinner said on reaching his first major semi-final. “We have put a lot of work in and a lot of sacrifices for this moment. It means a lot to me. It is a very nice moment for me. I just try to play my tennis and each match has its own story. I am happy to be in the semi-finals.”
The World No. 8 is 37-10 on the season and will meet World No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who rallied from two sets to love down to defeat Sinner in the quarter-finals last year, or seventh seed Andrey Rublev on Friday.
“It was tough,” Sinner said. “I was a break up in the second set and I got down mentally and this is a part we are working on a lot. I am very happy with how I reacted in the next couple of sets. He is a very tough player to play against.”
[ATP APP]
Safiullin was making his debut at The Championships and produced an array of attacking performances to become the lowest-ranked man to advance to the quarter-finals since then-World No. 144 Nick Kyrgios in 2014.
The 25-year-old, who had only won one tour-level grass-court match prior to his Wimbledon run, caused Sinner problems at times with his aggressive groundstrokes on Court 1. He struck 27 winners and rallied from a break down in the second set to level. However, he was unable to stay with the Italian, who broke Safiullin’s serve six times to improve to 2-0 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series.
Safiullin leaves London up 49 spots to No. 43 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings. He reached a career-high No. 82 in February.
“I’m still happy about this tournament that I could make to quarter-finals,” Safiullin said. “Jannik is definitely one of the toughest opponent. He’s playing on all surfaces very good. Yeah, he was much better, I would say, today than me. He deserve this win.”
Did You Know?
The Italian was 0-4 in major quarter-finals prior to Tuesday, having previously competed in one quarter-final at each of the four majors.