Novak Djokovic reached the Wimbledon semifinals for a men’s-record 14th time — breaking a tie with Roger Federer — quickly recovering from a “nasty” and “awkward” fall in the last game to beat Flavio Cobolli 6-7 (6), 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 on Wednesday and set up a showdown against No. 1 seed Jannik Sinner.
No. 22 seed Cobolli was 3 years old when 38-year-old Djokovic — whom Cobolli has called his idol — made his main draw debut at Wimbledon 20 years ago. The 23-year-old Italian had never reached the second week of a major before this tournament.
Djokovic, meanwhile, will appear in his 52nd major semifinal, which ties Chris Evert for the most by any men’s or women’s player in the Open era. He’s the second-oldest man to reach the final four at the All England Club — only Ken Rosewall in 1974 (39 years, 246 days) was older.
“A lot of numbers, a lot of numbers in the head,” said Djokovic, still in pursuit of an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam title that would break a tie with Margaret Court for most all time. “Wimbledon was, is, and always will be the most special tournament that we have in our sport, at least in my opinion and I think in many players’ opinion.
“It means the world to me that I’m still able at 38 to play in the final stages.”
Not everything went smoothly for Djokovic, who served for the opening set at 5-3 but got broken at love. He later was a point from owning that set before Cobolli came through. And on his second match point, his right foot slid out from under him and he did the splits as he went down to the grass and landed on his stomach.
Still, Djokovic dusted himself off and took the next two points to complete the victory.
“Obviously, [my] body is not the same today like it was before,” Djokovic said at his news conference, “so I guess the real impact or effect of what happened, I will feel tomorrow. So let’s see. I’m hoping in the next 24, 48 hours, that the severity of … what happened is not too bad, that I’ll be able to play at my best and free of pain in two days.”
Earlier, Djokovic did stretches and breathing exercises at changeovers. He whacked a shoe with his racket after one miss in the fourth set. He seemed bothered at times by the bright sun above Centre Court.
He also showed off all of his considerable skills, accumulating 13 aces, holding in 19 of 21 service games, using a drop shot-lob-drop shot combination to take one point and limiting his unforced errors to 22 — half as many as Cobolli.
On Friday, Djokovic will try to reach his seventh consecutive final at the All England Club and get closer to equaling Federer’s men’s mark of eight trophies there.
He faces a tough task against Sinner, a three-time Grand Slam champion who has won their four most recent meetings, including in the semifinals at the French Open last month.
“It’s going to take the best of me at the moment to beat Jannik. I mean, I know that,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic is 2-0 against Sinner at Wimbledon, eliminating him in the 2023 semifinals and 2022 quarterfinals.
The other men’s semifinal features two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, who defeated Djokovic in the 2023 and 2024 finals, against Taylor Fritz.
ESPN Research, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
