Matteo Berrettini: Best tennis day of my life so far

Matteo Berrettini became the first Italian to reach a Wimbledon single final on Friday with a foursets victory against Hubert HurkaczBerrettini claimed a 63 60 67 37 64 win over his Polish opponent who had knocked out eighttime champion Roger Federer in the quarterfinalsWorld No 9 Berrettini will attempt to become Italyrsquos first menrsquos Grand Slam champion since Adriano Panatta at the 1976 French Open ldquoI think I never dreamt about this because it was too much for a dreamrdquo said BerrettiniHubert Hurkacz PicAFPldquoI am trying to be the best at everything but after the third set I was feeling I deserved to win it but lost it I said lsquoit doesnrsquot matterrsquo I was feeling the stronger player and thatrsquos what I said to myself and eventually it paid offrdquoBig day for ItalyShould he win on Sunday Berrettini may be able to celebrate a national double with Italy facing England in the Euro 2020 final in London later that dayldquoSo far it is the best tennis day of my life but hopefully Sunday will be even better I feel kind of chills but I am doing it so I have to believe itrdquoBerrettini having wasted three break points earlier in the first set eventually broke through in the seventh game backing it up in the ninth converting set point courtesy of an ugly forehand shank from the Pole The 25yearold then raced through the second set in just 23 minutes a Hurkacz double fault and a wrongfooting forehand allowing Berrettini to seal a 10th successive game That became 11 games in a row at the start of the third set before 18thranked Hurkacz bidding to be the first Polish man to make a Slam final stopped the rotAlso ReadWe want to work under Rahul Dravid and pick his brain Bhuvneshwar KumarHurkacz fights backHurkacz held on and swept the third set tiebreaker but his momentum was quickly halted as the Italian broke for 10 in the fourth Berrettini was unable to convert a match point in the ninth game but made no mistake on his own serviceThe Italian fired 22 aces taking his tournament total past the 100mark and 60 winnersThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever