By Martyn Herman
LONDON (Reuters) -Canadian Denis Shapovalov produced a storming finish to beat Karen Khachanov in five sets and reach the Wimbledon semi-finals on Wednesday, his deepest run at a Grand Slam tournament.
The quarter-final seemed to be slipping away from the stylish 22-year-old left-hander when he trailed by two sets to one but he hit back to win 6-4 3-6 5-7 6-1 6-4.
Shapovalov, who put out twice winner Andy Murray in the third round, will play defending champion and top seed Novak Djokovic on Friday when he will bid to become only the second Canadian man to reach a Grand Slam final.
“Obviously, he is the best player in the world but I think anything is possible and when the match starts on Friday the scoreboard will show zero zero,” the popular Shapovalov, who will be guaranteed strong support, said on court.
Both 10th seed Shapovalov and 25th seed Khachanov were playing in a Grand Slam quarter-final for only the second time and they delivered a superb contest on a packed No.1 Court.
Shapovalov carried the form he showed in a fourth-round hammering of Spaniard Robert Bautista Agut into his second career clash with Khachanov and took the opening set courtesy of a single break of serve in the ninth game.
But rock-solid Khachanov responded to go 4-0 ahead in the second set and although Shapovalov re-focused it was too late to save the set. Khachanov then pounced on a Shapovalov lapse to break serve at 5-5 in the third set, holding his own serve in the next game to move to within one set of victory.
Shapovalov hit a purple patch to dominate the fourth set and as the match went into the decider the 25-year-old Khachanov seemed to be feeling the pace after also going the distance in his previous match against American Sebastian Korda.
He hung on grimly, scrambling out of a hole when he fell 0-40 down on serve at 2-2. But Shapovalov piled on the pressure again at 4-4 and saw three more break points go begging before Khachanov sent a tired-looking forehand long on a fourth.
Serving for the biggest win of his career, Shapovalov overcame a nervy double-fault and brought up two match points with a fizzing forehand winner, before sealing victory when Khachanov dumped a backhand into the net.
Shapovalov was rewarded for a fearless display, racking up 59 winners in a victory that could mark the breakthrough for the Canadian which has long been predicted.
Felix Auger-Aliassime could make it two Canadian men in the last four at a Grand Slam for the first time when he faces Italian Matteo Berrettini later on Court One.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)
