Wimbledon, day 13, LIVE: Djokovic and Norrie play for a place in the final where Kyrgios is already waiting after Nadal’s retirement

With Nick Kyrgios installed in the decisive instance, thanks to the withdrawal of Rafael Nadal due to an abdominal muscle injury, this Friday will define who will be the Australian’s rival in the Wimbledon final, in a duel that will face the Serbian Novak Djokovic, maximum favorite and winner of the last three editions of the tournament, with cameron norrietop seeded ninth.

The clash between the Serbian and the English will be played in the second round of the Central Court, not before 10:30 in our country, with ESPN2 and Star + on television. And it will have a lot of Argentine flavor, because the former number one has Santa Fe on his team Ulysses Badio and the place is formed by Buenos Aires Facundo Lugones.

Djokovic, who is looking for his seventh title in the British Grand Slam and 21st in this tournament category, to get close to Nadal’s record of 22, was one step away from saying goodbye to the tournament on Tuesday, as the Italian Sinner Jannik stole the first two sets in the match played in the quarter-finals. But she reacted in time, overturned the game and ended up winning 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 to enter the semi-finals of the tournament for the eleventh time.

The Serbian, who does not lose on the grass of the All of England From the quarter-finals of the 2017 edition, he knows that against Norrie he will also have a difficult challenge.

“I know what’s in store for me,” said Nole, 35, the current world number three. “Cameron has nothing to lose and every win from now on is of great value to him. But I know his game well.”

Norrie’s tennis will not be Djokovic’s only rival in this Friday’s clash, the second in history between the two, after the Balkan won 6-2, 6-1 in the Italian round of the ATP Finals last year, at Turin. Nole will also have the audience against him, at least a good part of the people who will fill the stadium.

It is that, although he was born in South Africa, he grew up in New Zealand – a country he represented as a junior – and finished training as a tennis player in the United States University Tennis League; Norrie has been playing since 2013 under the flag of Great Britain, the homeland of his parents. And he is two wins to become the first local Wimbledon champion since 2016, the year of Andy Murray’s second consecration.

At the age of 26 he will play the semifinal in a major for the first time. Until this tournament, he had never made it through the third round of a tournament of this level. At All England, he had reached that stage last year.

On the way to this instance he defeated the Spaniards Pablo Andujar Y Giacomo Munarto the Americans Steve Johnson Y tommy paolo and in the quarter-finals he had to work to defeat Belgium’s David Goffin in five sets, in a battle that ended up going on fueled by cheering from the crowd. But the toughest match will be the one he plays in the semifinals.

“Playing with Djokovic is obviously one of the most difficult tasks in tennis. I would say grass is his favorite surface and his record is incredible here at Wimbledon. It will be tough.”

The winner of this match will clash with Kyrgios, who made it through to the final without taking the field, after Nadal announced his retirement from the tournament the day after scoring an epic five-set victory against Taylor Fritz. In the duel against the American, the Spaniard played half-car, dwarfed by an injury to the abdominal area that bothered him from the first set and which affected his level. And after verifying that it was a 7mm tear in the abdominal muscle, he decided to go down before the semifinal.

“Here the only thing worth winning is and it is practically impossible to think of winning two games at this level with an abdominal tear. If I continue with the injury it will be worse. There is no point in trying. I am very sad,” he commented. .

Thus the Australian, 40th in the standings and who had defeated the Chilean in the quarter-finals in three sets Christian Garinadvanced without playing and will now have, at 27, the chance to win his first “big” title in what will be the first final of this category of his career.