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Roberto Bautista Agut seized his chance and pulled himself together after stopping the third set Wednesday at Wimbledon to take a place in his first semifinal of the Grand Slam championship.
Spain, number 23, lost its first set on major ground but won 7-5, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 against Argentina's Guido Pella, number 26, in three hours and eight minutes on the No. 1 pitch of the All England Club.
Bautista Agut is the sixth Spanish to reach the semi-finals at the Championships, succeeding Manuel Alonso-Areyzaga (1921), Manuel Santana (1963, 1966), Andres Gimeno (1970), Manuel Orantes (1972) and Rafael Nadal (2006- 08, 2010-11, 2018). Nadal will face American Sam Querrey in the quarterfinals later today.
Bautista Agut will now prepare to face world No. 1 and four-time champion Novak Djokovic on Friday for a spot in the Wimbledon final. Djokovic, who beat Belgian David Goffin, No. 21, 6-4, 6-0, 6-2 in the last eight hours of Wednesday, has a 7-3 life against Bautista Agut in their FedEx series ATP Head2Head.
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Bautista Agut moved to seventh place in the ATP Race To London by rising to a record of 28-11 in 2019 with a semifinal place at Wimbledon, for one of eight places at the prestigious Nitto ATP final, to be held at L & # 39; O2 in London from 10 to 17 November. Buy tickets today
For 40 minutes, Bautista Agut's ploy of running around his back to hit powerful forehands paid off as he triumphed 4-1 on three occasions. But Pella returned to 4-4 in scoring his sixth chance to score, when Bautista Agut opened the field to the attack. Pella then did well to save four break points in a match to 18 points for a 5-4 lead, but two games later, the Argentinian was tired and tipped a backhand to give a 6-5 advantage to Bautista Agut. The first set lasted 59 minutes.
From 4-5 in the first set, Bautista Agut won five consecutive games, including a break in the first game of the second set. Pella started playing more than 13 hours of play at this event against one of the most regular baseline players on the ATP circuit. While Argentina was unable to convert a break point to 1-2, with Bautista Agut serving at 30/40, a total of 16 backhand errors cost Pella in the first two sets. Bautista Agut sealed the second set with a winner in forehand approach to his second point.
On the back foot, Pella quickly regrouped and took over the baton from Bautista Agut when the Spaniard made three consecutive errors at the start of the third set. He saved a break point at 4-2, but could not convert two points to Bautista's serve in the next match. The No. 26 world kept his cool at 5-3, winning the set with a front-right approach that Bautista Agut hit the net.
Bautista Agut returned to her original tactics by placing herself in the advertising court and gave Pella the green light for the number one court. Having broken Pella in the fourth game of the fourth set, the 31-year-old did not look back and almost took a 5-2 lead, but was saved by Pella. In the end, this is the forehand of Bautista Agut (31 winners in the game) that made the difference.
Over the past 10 days, Pella had represented two previous finalists at Wimbledon: the fourth-seeded and 2017 finalist Kevin Anderson in the third round and the No. 15 seed and 2016 finalist Milos Raonic in the fourth round. The 29-year-old won his first ATP tour trophy at Brazil Open in Sao Paulo (Garin's death) in February and is now 27-16 years old this season.
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