If a tournament’s final four has the top two seeds, its greatest active champion and a local hero, it’s like drawing a royal flush in poker. With the best cards in hand, the event is always going to be a winner.

Wimbledon 2026 will have a chance to experience this on Friday. Jannik Sinner, the top seed and defending champion, will take on Novak Djokovic, a 24-time Major winner and seven-time titlist at SW19. In the other encounter, second seed and reigning Roland-Garros trophy-holder Alexander Zverev will meet British wildcard Arthur Fery.

There is both familiarity and novelty. Sinner and Djokovic have sparred 11 times overall, with the Italian ahead 6-5. Zverev and Fery are first-time Wimbledon semifinalists and have no history of facing each other.

The Sinner-Djokovic fixture will be more intriguing, primarily because the gap between them appears to have shrunk a little. Sinner, who thrashed Djokovic 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 here in 2025, is not the player who went on an awe-inspiring 29-match winning run earlier this year. At the French Open, he was troubled by the heat and lost early; over the past 10 days here, he has not been at his clinical best.

Djokovic beat Sinner over five pulsating sets in the Australian Open semifinal in January, snapping a run of five defeats to the Italian. But much will depend on the 39-year-old’s recovery after the five-hour, 15-minute marathon versus Felix Auger-Aliassime. Two days’ rest would have helped, and so will the additional time on Friday, for Djokovic’s will be the second match.

Back in Australia, the Serb was aided by Jakub Mensik’s withdrawal (fourth round) and Lorenzo Musetti’s mid-match retirement (quarters). Sinner, however, remains wary. “Even when I had the [winning] streak, every match with Novak had its own story,” Sinner said.

“Especially on grass, if you have a bad serving day or if you are not feeling the ball well, it’s going to be tough. He has won this tournament so many times and he knows exactly how to approach it.”

Zverev and Fery will be short on that foreknowledge, but the German, by virtue of being more pedigreed, should fancy himself. This will be his 12th Slam semifinal, and after succeeding in Paris, his confidence will be sky-high.

On the other hand, 23-year-old Fery was ranked No. 114 coming into Wimbledon and had only won two Major contests all career. He will be pumped up nonetheless, more so after the straight-sets demolition of Flavio Cobolli and the five-set victory over Grigor Dimitrov. Will there be another chapter in the fairytale?

In recent times, the most prominent Italian understudy to World No. 1 Jannik Sinner has been Lorenzo Musetti.

He has made the quarterfinals or better at all four Slams, been in the ATP top-10 for a good part of the last 14 months, and even climbed up to a career-high ranking of No. 5 ahead of the Australian Open earlier this year.

Over the past few months, however, Flavio Cobolli has usurped that understudy spot. Ranked outside the top-20 at the start of the season, the 24-year-old broke into the top-10 on the back of a stirring run to the recent French Open final.

On Monday, with a straight-sets victory over fifth seed Alex de Minaur, he made his second straight Wimbledon quarterfinal. He will meet British wild card Arthur Fery, who ended Grigor Dimitrov’s stay by clinching a nerve-wracking five-setter.

“I played one of my best matches ever, especially on this surface, which is always tough,” said Cobolli. “I found a way to a high level for the whole match and it was really impressive,” added the World No. 10.

Encouragingly, the wholesome performance came after quite a few back-to-the-wall efforts. Cobolli recovered from a first set bagel (6-0) to scrape through in five sets against the big-serving Karen Khachanov in the previous round; of the 12 sets he has won, six have been tense tie-breaks.

What should also hold him in good stead is his powerful game. Cobolli belongs to the group of players who literally bludgeon the ball, with Joao Fonseca, Jakub Mensik and Tomas Machac the other prominent members. When combined with a capable serve, it can prove devastating.

Movement and foot dexterity are allies too. After all, Cobolli spent five years at the famed football academy of AS Roma before switching full-time to the racquet sport. Recently in Paris, he did an entire lap of Court Philippe-Chatrier while juggling a tennis ball.

After the win against de Minaur, much to the delight of the Court No. 1 audience, he even re-created Cristiano Ronaldo’s famed mid-air twirl celebration.

The skills are there. The crowd has been charmed. Will silverware follow?