British wild card Arthur Fery stuns Dimitrov to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals
Ranked 114 and without a five-set win a fortnight ago, Fery is the first men's wild card into the SW19 last eight since Kyrgios in 2014.
Arthur Fery has become the story of Wimbledon 2026. The 23-year-old British wild card, ranked 114th in the world and without a single five-set win to his name a fortnight ago, beat former world No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov 7-5, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(10-7) on Centre Court on Monday to reach the quarter-finals of his home Grand Slam.
It made him the first men's wild card to reach the Wimbledon last eight since Nick Kyrgios in 2014. The win took three hours and 55 minutes and followed the script Fery has made his own this week: two sets to one down, broken twice in the fourth set, and a mini-break down in the deciding-set tiebreak, before he reeled off six of the final eight points to close it out.
Two rounds earlier he had done much the same to Zizou Bergs, recovering from two sets to one and a double break. Before this fortnight Fery had won just one main-draw match at a major away from SW19. He now has back-to-back five-set wins from seemingly lost positions, and his ranking is projected to climb from 114 to around 63.
"I have no words right now," Fery said on court. "It's incredibly tough to put words to what I've just felt on a tennis court in front of all you guys."
He then turned to the Royal Box and a watching Roger Federer: "We've got probably the greatest of all time watching from the front row." For Dimitrov there was a cruel echo. A year on from retiring injured while two sets up on eventual champion Jannik Sinner at the same stage, the Bulgarian played some of his best tennis before falling just short again.
Fery's reward is a last-eight meeting with Roland Garros finalist Flavio Cobolli, who earlier ended fifth seed Alex de Minaur's run. Fery beat Cobolli in straight sets at the Australian Open earlier this year, the kind of omen a dream fortnight tends to attract.
