Musetti makes hay in Wimbledon sunshine, Rybakina eyes title

LONDON : The sunshine finally appeared over Wimbledon and shone most brightly on Lorenzo Musetti on Wednesday as he continued a magnificent fortnight for Italian tennis by reaching his first Grand Slam semi-final with victory over Taylor Fritz.

But the injury curse that has blighted this year's tournament struck again as Alex De Minaur was forced to withdraw before his quarter-final against Novak Djokovic.

The Australian's despair was also bad news for Centre Court ticket holders who were left with only 61 minutes of singles action to digest - the time it took women's fourth seed Elena Rybakina to beat Elina Svitolina's 6-3 6-2.

Big-serving Rybakina, the 2022 champion and favourite now to lift the trophy for the second time, will face Barbora Krejcikova in Thursday's semi-finals after the tamed the firepower of Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko for a 6-4 7-6(4) win in a battle of former French Open champions.

Thursday's other women's semi-final will be between Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini and Croatian Donna Vekic.

The 22-year-old Musetti initially looked like being overpowered by American big-hitter Fritz but produced a sublime display of silky all-court tennis to beat the 13th seed 3-6 7-6(5) 6-2 3-6 6-1 and set up a clash with Djokovic.

It is only the second time in history that an Italian man and woman have reached the semi-finals at a Grand Slam, the first coming last month when Paolini and Jannik Sinner reached the last four at the French Open.

"I don't realise yet what I've done. First of all I want to thank all the Italian crowd who are here to support us," the 25th seed Musetti said on court.

"We were joking about trying to play to the big stage at Wimbledon. I've never tried Court One and Centre Court. I played a