Alex de Minaur wants the Wimbledon crowd to take him under their wing as an honorary Brit in his quest to bring down Novak Djokovic on Centre Court.
The Australian is the boyfriend of British No1 Katie Boulter, who is expected to be in his box for the match, and is hoping that connection will make him the fan favourite for the 15,000-strong crowd.
“I’ll take all the support I can get,” he said. “I can be the honorary Brit here at Wimbledon. I’ll take all the support I can get.
“But I do feel very loved here, I must say. I always love coming here to Wimbledon and playing here. I always feel like I play some of my best tennis. Over the years, I feel like the support I’ve had has grown significantly.
“It’s a great feeling as a player to know you’ve got a lot of people in that stadium backing you, having your back when essentially you’re so far away from home.”
Now a top-10 player, his run to the quarter-finals at the All England Club is his best ever showing and he now faces the daunting task of taking down a seven-time champion in Djokovic.
Of that challenge, he said: “He’s obviously achieved greatness many, many years so he’s going to be a tough battle. But the type of battles that I want to be playing. Those are the challenges that I want to take advantage of and go out there and show what I can do.”
De Minaur pulled up on the very last point of his match with Arthur Fils in the last round with a hip problem but downplayed the severity of the issue.
Djokovic, meanwhile, has shown no ill effects of knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus during the French Open. And the pair will battle it out for a semi-final spot against the winner of either Lorenzo Musetti, the Queen’s runner-up, and Taylor Fritz.
The other last four encounter will see a match-up between defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev after the latter downed a poorly Jannik Sinner in five sets.
Sinner said he had woken up feeling sick and, while he didn’t vomit, had to come off court at one point feeling ill. “I took some time because I was dizzy quite a lot,” he said. “When I went back, I tried my best. But nothing to take away from Daniil, I think he played very smart”
Medvedev, meanwhile, said: “For me, what was important today is I lost [the last] five times to him. It was important to just show I’m always going to be there, I’m always going to fight, I’m always going to try to make your life difficult.”
It sets up a repeat of last year’s semi-final against Alcaraz, who admitted post-match he was somewhat distracted by Spain’s own Euros semi-final against France in Germany.
Alcaraz struggled for much of his match against Tommy Paul but still found a way to win in four sets and make the last four for the second successive time.
Following a relatively scrappy victory, the Spaniard said: “It’s going to be really difficult to play my best tennis every match. I know that there are going to be some matches that I’m not going to find my best tennis even though I have to try to win it.
“I think what the big three did along their career, they are not going to play their best tennis. When I’m not playing my best tennis, I’m going to try to find solutions just to be a bit better, just to beat my opponent.”
