Wimbledon 2023: Sinner storms into maiden Grand Slam semifinal with win over Roman Safiullin

LONDON— Italy’s Jannik Sinner stormed into his maiden semifinals at the Wimbledon here by beating unseeded Roman Safiullin in four sets in a quarterfinal clash.

The Italian eighth seed survived a fright when he lost the second set before fighting back to win the next two sets, emerging a 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory in two hours and 14 minutes at No.1 Court.

The 21-year-old Sinner thus became the third Italian man to reach the last four at Wimbledon, joining Nicola Pietrangeli (1960) and 2021 finalist Matteo Berrettini.

In a clash that witnessed some heavy hitting, Sinner broke Safiullin’s serve six times to improve to 2-0 in his head-to-head series with Safiullin, who was making his debut at Wimbledon and produced an array of attacking shots to become the lowest-ranked man to advance to the quarterfinals since then-World No. 144 Nick Kyrgios in 2014.

Sinner, the World No.8 is 37-10 in the season and will meet the winner of the match between World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and seventh seed Andrey Rublev on Friday. Djokovic had rallied from two sets to love down to defeat Sinner in the Wimbledon quarterfinals last year.

“It means a lot to me,” Sinner said on reaching his first major semifinal. “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 semifinals.”

“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.”