Live from Wimbledon Day 10 - The Fery tale continues!

**Catherine** (0:11)
Hello and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, live from Wimbledon and presented by Barclays, the official banking partner of Wimbledon. Coming to you on day 10 of the championships, the day that 23-year-old British wild card, Arthur Fery, became just the second man to reach a Wimbledon semi-final as a wild card. These are not teclas for The Tennis Podcast. We are being called in the crossfire of some John McEnroe heckling.
You cannot be serious.

**David** (0:48)
Here's a wee photograph.

**Catherine** (1:05)
We're live here, John.

**David** (1:09)
We're live on air at the moment. Thank you, John. Yeah, you are, yeah.
Well, he's delivered, thankfully.

**Catherine** (1:24)
In case you didn't hear that, it was, can I have a photo with my wife? She calls you the Silver Fox.

**David** (1:31)
Just standard day here on the Wimbledon Roof, have to play.

**Catherine** (1:35)
I had so many Arthur Fery puns lined up.

**David** (1:38)
Let's use them up.

**Catherine** (1:40)
I now feel so much after The Lord Mayor's Show. Wow, what a...
Hello and welcome to The Tennis Podcast. Live from Wimbledon, coming to you on day 10 of the Championships, the day that 23-year-old British wildcard Arthur Fery became just the second man to reach a Wimbledon semifinal as a wildcard. The first, of course, being your friend of mine, David, Goran Izevich, who ended up going all the way back in 2001, before Arthur Fery was born. David, you were out there in Arthur's Barmy Army on Centre Court. Matt, you were reporting from the hill or the seat, if you like, where it was standing room only. I think, in fact, I heard they were turning people away from the hill. Such was its level of busyness.

**Matt** (2:42)
They were indeed. I was introduced to the one way system of the hill, which I'm sure is very familiar to a lot of people who spend time on the hill. But it was my first time experiencing it that busy in recent years that they had put this one way system in. And I went to try and find your brother, got told I had gone the wrong way around the hill and had to walk all the way around. It was packed out there. A lot of sunburn.

**Catherine** (3:06)
Couldn't even find a six foot six inch man in a Panama hat. That's how busy it was out there. David, brace yourselves for an hour of this, folks. Is it safe to say that fairy fever is sweeping the nation?

**David** (3:19)
The fairy tale continues.

**Catherine** (3:21)
I'll just cross them off as we go along, shall I?

**David** (3:25)
I hate it already, even though I've partaken in it.
Yeah, but there was fairy fever out inside that stadium, and I'm getting messages from all sorts of people in my life who don't really follow tennis, who are interested in Arthur Fery. And it's not surprising the way he's playing. I mean, this is an absolutely incredible run that he is putting together.
And the matter of fact nature of how he's doing it, both on the court as a player, and then in the interview room afterwards, is astounding to me. Where are his nerves? He says he's nervous. He says he comes out into the court nervous. He doesn't look nervous. I mean, in his post-match press conference, he was asked, you know, if I'd have asked you or if I'd have told you, you were going to be in the semi-finals of this tournament two weeks ago, what would you have said? He said, yeah, yeah, you know, I've always thought I'm one of the best, you know, I'm capable of playing against some of the best players in the world. And, you know, I thought I could do it and I've done it. And I thought, this is great. I love this. I love this attitude. But in terms of how he played, I mean, he was even better than he was against Dimitrov. This, you know, he's had some pretty significant dips in level and energy during matches over the course of this fortnight. He was a set and a breakdown against Damir Zhumar in the first round. Let's not forget that. He was on his way out against CZ Bergs. You know, he was a very, very good player. That's OK if he had lost that match. I'm amazed that he didn't lose it, quite honestly, given he was 4-1 double breakdown in the fourth set, 4-1 down in the fifth set. He managed to win that match.
He's two sets to one down and a breakdown against Grigor Dimitrov the next round, you know. But today, there were no dips. He came out from ball one, and he dominated Flavio Cobolli. It was absolutely incredible tennis. The timing of this guy, the cleanliness of the hit, the way he hits the tennis ball on the backhand side in particular is right up there. It was a gorgeous performance. And then he kind of broke Cobolli. In that third set, Cobolli was a broken man, who was resorting to sort of asking the crowd to cheer him, because he was feeling down in the dumps.