The inevitable has happened. Novak Djokovic has reached his seventh Wimbledon men’s singles final, winning 18 sets without reply since dropping the opening one back on Day 1.

On Friday, the top seed got past the 10th seed Denis Shapovalov 7-6 (7-3), 7-5, 7-5 in the second semi-final, joining Italian seventh seed Matteo Berrettini for a Sunday final showdown.

Shapovalov, playing in his debut grand slam semi-final, against the defending champion playing his 41st, was rather fearless, not yielding points easily.

Unfortunately, his moments of brilliance were countered by a number of unforced errors — 35 for the record. And you simply can’t get away with that when Djokovic is on the other side of the net.

Shapovalov gained an early break in the opening set and held it until he was serving for the set at 5-4, 30-30. But he put a forehand wide with the court open and Djokovic stranded. The defending champion went on to force a tie-break, and won it.

The Canadian then had three break points for 3-1 in the second set, but failed to close any out.

Two sets down against arguably the greatest player the sport has ever seen, Shapovalov did not give up and created three more break points in the opening game of the third. However, he failed to win any of them.

Earlier, Berrettini ensured that Italians will have a Super Sunday — with the country featuring in both the Euro and Wimbledon finals.

He stayed solid in the face of a spirited fightback from Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, to become the first Italian to reach the final of the grass court grand slam with a 6-3, 6-0, 6-7 (3-7), 6-4 victory.

Serving at almost 140mph Berrettini was too hot to handle and Hurkacz found himself at the receiving end.

The 25-year-old took two hours and 36 minutes to get past the 14th seeded Hurkacz on Centre Court to reach the championship match on Sunday — the same day Italy play in the Euro 2020 soccer final a few miles up the road at Wembley Stadium against England.

“I have no words,” Berrettini said in his on-court interview. “I need, I think, a couple of hours to understand what happened. I just know that I played a great match. I’m really happy. I’m really glad to be here.

“I think I never dreamed about this because it was too much for a dream.”

Berrettini’s success in the past fortnight has not been entirely out of the blue as he arrived at the All England Club after winning his fifth tour-level title at Queen’s.

He was the first player to win the Wimbledon warm-up event on his debut appearance since Boris Becker in 1985 and remains on course to match the German’s feat of completing the Queen’s Club-Wimbledon double in the same year.

Friday’s victory also made Berrettini the first Italian man to reach a Grand Slam final since Adriano Panatta won the Roland Garros title in 1976.

This was the No.7 seed’s 11th victory in a row on grass and the only surprise was that it was terribly one-sided at times against the man who conquered Roger Federer.

Berrettini exerted huge pressure on the Pole’s serve throughout and the confidence in his ground-strokes, which had been missing at times in his quarter-final victory against Felix Auger-Aliassime, returned in abundance.

The Italians have been waiting 144 years for this, for one of their own to go through into a final at the All England Club. No Italian man had ever previously served as quickly or as brilliantly on the Wimbledon grass, or played with as much poise at such a big, life-defining moment, as the 25-year-old Roman in a reversed baseball cap.