Arthur Fery has been part of tennis history on his breakthrough run at Wimbledon this year.
Fery was the world number 114 coming into Wimbledon this year, and therefore required a wildcard for the grass court major.
The 23-year-old Briton has taken full advantage of this, with Fery beating Flavio Cobolli and Grigor Dimitrov en route to the Wimbledon semi-finals.
Fery is now just two wins away from the Wimbledon title, but he has already helped achieve something that has not been seen in tennis for 52 years.
Arthur Fery has helped match 52-year tennis record at Wimbledon
No-one was expecting Fery to be one of the final four players at Wimbledon this year, with the Briton having only ever won two main draw matches at Grand Slams prior to this tournament.
Fery’s Wimbledon run means that it is now back-to-back Grand Slam tournaments where a player ranked outside the top 100 has reached the semi-finals of the men’s singles tournament.
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At Roland Garros, that was in the form of Matteo Arnaldi, who actually could not play his Roland Garros semi-final due to injury, which brought an abrupt end to the tournament for the Italian, who was the world number 104 at the time.
The last time that two ATP players ranked outside the top 100 reached back-to-back Grand Slam semi-finals was in 1974, also at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
That came when Frenchman Francois Jauffret, who was the world number 113 at the time, reached the Roland Garros semi-finals, followed by world number 109 Ken Rosewall making the last-four at Wimbledon.
Despite both players being ranked outside the top 100, Jauffret and Rosewall were both seeded at their respective slams, with seedings at the time being decided by a committee rather than players’ ranking.
Jauffret had previously reached a semi-final at Roland Garros, and matched this result again as he was beaten by Manuel Orantes.
While Rosewall was already an eight-time Grand Slam champion, and at 39 years old reached the Wimbledon final before losing to Jimmy Connors.
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Fery still remains in the Wimbledon Championships, and he will now be looking to do something that neither Jauffret nor Rosewall were able to achieve and win the title.
Although it is a rare feat to see a wildcard make it so far in a Grand Slam tournament, two wildcard players have previously won major titles.
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Wildcards were first handed out at Grand Slams in 1977, and 24 years later, Goran Ivanisevic would win the 2001 Wimbledon title after receiving one.
Ivanisevic had previously lost in three Wimbledon finals, and after dropping outside the top 100 he received a wildcard, before beating the likes of Pat Rafter, Marat Safin and Tim Henman en route to the title.
This has only been repeated once since then, with Kim Clijsters winning the 2009 US Open title after coming out of retirement.
Fery will now play against Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals, as he looks to replicate both Ivanisevic and Clijsters at Wimbledon this year.
