Italian tennis player Matteo Berrettini punched his ticket to the Wimbledon final on Friday with a 6-3, 6-0, 6-7(3), 6-4 victory over Hubert Hurkacz. The win made the No. 7 seed in the tournament the first Italian male player to make it into the singles final at Wimbledon, and the first Italian man to make any Grand Slam final since 1976.
“I think I never dreamed about this because it was too much for a dream,” Berrettini said in the on-court interview. “I’m just so happy.”
This is the first Grand Slam final of his career, just a month after he made a quarterfinal appearance at the French Open. As a reward for his hard-earned victory, he will have to five-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic.
But he’ll have to cross that bridge in the future, even if it is the immediate one. For now, the focus should be on his performance that staved off Hurkacz. After taking 11 straight games, Berrettini had to deal with a Hurkacz comeback in the third set, after it looked like the seventh seed would knock out his semifinal opponent in straight sets. Berrettini finished the match with five aces during his second-to-last service game and then closed the match out.
Even if the victory did come in somewhat dominant fashion, Berrettini’s opponent was no slouch. In fact, Hurkacz was just one match removed from knocking out Roger Federer in straight sets.
