At 23, Flavio Cobolli will play the first quarter -final of his Grand Chelem career, after eliminating Marin Cilic this Monday in four sets in Wimbledon.
Happy Italian tennis! While Jannik Sinner is a solid n ° 1 and Lorenzo Musetti has just played the semi-finals at Roland-Garros and is in the Top 10, a third player will join the top 20 next week: Flavio Cobolli. At 23, the native of Florence qualified this first quarter -final in the Grand Slam final on Monday. While he had only won one match in Wimbledon during his career, he eliminated in the eighth in the sea finals Cilic, a former finalist on the London lawn and who had notably dropped the world number 4 Jack Draper in the second round.
Cobolli won in four sets and 3:26 of play (6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 7-6) against the Croatian, to whom he had left only six games during the last Roland Garros. In this match between two good servers (19 aices for Cilic, three conceded breaks, 11 aices for Cobolli, a conceded station wagon), the Italian had the last word, even if he almost was embarrassed in a fifth round. He notably took advantage of the 64 direct faults of his opponent.
In the first set, after having missed a first break of break at 1-1, the Italian did not miss 2-2, and kept his advantage until the end, concluding on a white game. In the second, the scenario turned out to be almost identical, with a 3-3 cobolli station wagon and a set pocketed without trembling.
Cobolli was not worried long
But Cilic raised his level of play in the third round and was not worried about his service. On the contrary, it was he who obtained three break balls at 6-5, which were therefore set balls, but Cobolli saved them on his service. The Italian, however, has not managed to save the fourth, 6-4 in the decisive game. The 36-year-old Croatian, forced to play on the Challenger circuit for a large part of the season (he is 83rd in the world) took advantage of playing on a large short, and led 4-3, 30-15 in the fourth set, on his service.
He hoped to push his opponent to play a fifth set, but Cobolli immediately picked up 4-4, and finally won the tie-break (7-3). It is therefore he who will challenge Novak Djokovic or Alex de Minaur on Wednesday for a place in the last square.
