Jerzy Janowicz wins all-Polish Wimbledon quarterfinal match

WIMBLEDON, England — No. 24 seed Jerzy Janowicz became the first Polish man to reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament when he defeated Lukasz Kubot, 7-5, 6-4, 6-4, on Wednesday in an all-Polish quarterfinal match.

Janowicz, who is 22 years and 236 days old, is the youngest man to reach the Wimbledon semifinals since Britain’s Andy Murray did so at 22 years and 51 days in 2009.

Janowicz was a qualifier here last year and reached the third round. His straight-sets win over Kubot will put Janowicz in his first semifinal of any tournament this year.

His success is expected to lift his ATP ranking to No. 17, which would make him only the second Polish man to reach the top 20. The first was Wojtek Fibak, who had a career-best ranking of No. 10 in 1977. Janowicz was ranked 22^nd before Wimbledon began.

Afterward, Janowicz and Kubot embraced at the net and exchanged shirts.

His opponent in Friday’s semifinals will be the winner of the quarterfinal between No. 2 seed Murray and unseeded Fernando Verdasco of Spain. Their match got off to a surprising start, with Verdasco winning the first two sets, 6-4, 6-3.

Before meeting Verdasco, Murray hadn’t dropped a set in this tournament. That distinction is now shared by No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who defeated No. 7 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-3, in a quarterfinal earlier Wednesday, and by Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro, who needed treatment for his injured left knee in the first game of his match against No. 4 David Ferrer but still defeated the Spaniard, 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

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