The amazing adventures of unsung Briton Arthur Fery have reached new heights of improbability at Wimbledon as the local hero became only the second wildcard in history to reach the semi-finals of the world’s biggest tennis tournament.

The 23-year-old, brought up as a kid just five minutes away from the All England Club, was again a picture of incredulity after he completely outplayed ninth seed Flavio Cobolli 6-4 7-6 (7-4) 6-0 in front of an ecstatic Centre Court crowd on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).

It’s a quarter-of-a-century since Goran Ivanisevic became the first wildcard to win the men’s singles, and Fery, the world No.114, is, amazingly, just two wins away from matching the Croat’s historic 2001 achievement.

It earned him messages of congratulations from the Princess of Wales and the prime minster, while he had also shaken hands with Queen Camilla while waiting to go out on court, before she made her way up to the Royal Box to watch one of the feelgood stories of the British sporting year.

“She was waiting for me at the end of the match too, congratulated me. I told her how much of an honour it was for me to play in front of her,” said Fery.

“She just said, ‘Congratulations, keep going.’ I told her it was my (24th) birthday on Sunday, so it would be great to play the Wimbledon final on my birthday.”

‘Better and better’

Having battled through deciding tiebreaks in comeback wins against Zizou Bergs and Grigor Dimitrov, Fery could hardly believe it was so seemingly straightforward to defeat the Italian French Open finalist Cobolli, who had dismantled Alex de Minaur’s challenge in the previous round.

“It just gets better and better every match. Can’t believe it. It’s incredible,” sighed Fery.

After his first ever win over a top-10 player, Fery next faces French Open champ Alexander Zverev, who, while the Centre Court was following the latest chapter of the British ‘Fery-tale’, was overpowering American Taylor Fritz 6-4 6-4 6-2 on No.1 Court.

Fery, who had won only two tour-level matches before this year’s grass-court campaign, at least went in with the boost of having defeated Cobolli before, in the first round of the Australian Open in January.

Belief in self

French-born Fery, whose dad is a businessman who runs Ligue 1 soccer club Lorient and whose mother was a former tennis pro, came to Britain with them when he was a toddler and used to regularly wander the few minutes down the road to watch the Championships.

But he would never have witnessed scenes like those he found himself at the centre of as he broke the Italian five times in all, while giving up his serve just once.

“I’ve always believed in myself and believed that I could be a top player in the world,” said Fery.

“Obviously a semi-finalist of Wimbledon is something else. But I’ve taken it match by match, I haven’t looked ahead. I’ve just played every match as it is. Here I am.”

No.2 seed Zverev, though, promises to be a very different proposition as he snapped a seven-match losing streak against Fritz to stay in the hunt for back-to-back majors.

“I knew that I had to play an almost perfect match to have a chance and I’m extremely happy to be in the semi-finals especially after beating Taylor, who I hadn’t won against in more than two years,” said Zverev.

“I played a fantastic match.”

As for the next match, he told the crowd with a smile: “You guys can all be for Fery. It’s totally fine. I understand and I don’t have a problem with it. I hope it’ll be good for me - not so good for everyone else.”