Arthur Fery takes to Centre Court this afternoon hoping to reach an unlikely quarter-final at Wimbledon.
The British wildcard is the last of the home favourites after a bloodbath of exits in the early rounds across both men’s and women’s singles draws.
Fery finds himself as the last one standing, and he takes on a fellow wildcard entry, Grigor Dimitrov, in the last 16 on the biggest stage of all.
Fery, 23, earned his place in the fourth round with a marathon five-set victory over Belgian Zizou Bergs, the recently-crowned Eastbourne Open champion, coming back from two sets to one down to win a topsy-turvy final championship tiebreak on Court No18 on Saturday.
Before that, he had dropped one set apiece in his first two rounds. Firstly. he faced the irate Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, beating him 3-6 6-2 6-2 6-1 out on Court No16, before he ousted fourth seed Ben Shelton’s conqueror Otto Virtanen.
He defeated the Fin 5-7 7-6(3) 6-3 6-3 on Court No18, before returning to the same arena to beat Bergs and move into the fourth round.
Now, he will face his toughest test so far, Dimitrov, who was forced to withdraw from the Championships mid-match last year with a pectoral injury that he suffered while leading world No1 Jannik Sinner at the time. Sinner went on to win the tournament, defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final to claim a maiden Championships crown.
It will be the first time that Fery takes to Centre Court, having previously joked that he did not want to play on any of the All England Club’s show courts.
This time, however, he will have a capacity crowd behind him as he takes on the much-loved Dimitrov, who will have to embody the pantomime villain in Fery’s fairytale.
Fery vs Dimitrov start time
Fery and Dimitrov are second up on Centre Court, and they will follow Jasmine Paolini and Alexandra Eala, who open play at 1.30pm BST.
Jiri Lehecka and Alexander Zverev wrap up the day on the main stage after the conclusion of Fery and Dimitrov’s encounter.
How to watch Fery vs Dimitrov
TV channel: In the UK, live free-to-air coverage of the action at Wimbledon will be broadcast across BBC One and BBC Two.
Coverage on BBC Two begins at 10.30am BST, and further coverage on BBC One begins at 2pm.
Live stream: TV licence holders can also catch the contest live online via BBC iPlayer.
Live blog: You can follow all the action LIVE with Standard Sport’s dedicated blog.
