The rare sighting of the sun at this year’s Wimbledon provided no incentive for Elena Rybakina to linger around longer than necessary on Centre Court as she ended Elina Svitolina’s quarter-final challenge with a 6-3, 6-2 defeat.

Over the course of the last five days, the grasscourt major had started to resemble an indoor tournament with matches on the two main showcourts taking place under cover.

The retractable roof on Centre Court was finally open under a clear blue sky on Wednesday as Rybakina produced a majestic performance to reach the last four for the second time in three years.

Rybakina, the only women’s champion left in the draw, sealed the first set with a 115mph thunderbolt and fired down another ace — her seventh of the match — to complete the victory.

The world No. 4, who is also the highest seed left in the women’s draw, will face Barbora Krejcikova for a place in Saturday’s final.

Krejcikova reached her first Wimbledon semi-final with a 6-4, 7-6(4) win over Latvian 13th seed Jelena Ostapenko in the battle of former French Open champions.

The Czech 31st seed kept her composure to force her opponent into 35 unforced errors across the match.

Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic plays a backhand return to Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia during their quarterfinal match at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London AP/PTI

Ostapenko, 27, had power in her serve but struggled to place it, landing less than 50 per cent of her first serve during the opening set.

Krejcikova, French Open champion in 2021, broke in the third game and went on to clinch the opener. Ostapenko rallied to break her opponent in the second set and open a 4-1 lead.

However, mistakes once again dogged her game while Krejcikova stayed focused to go 5-4 up. However, she was broken when serving for the match which went to a tiebreak and a brilliant crosscourt forehand from Krejcikova found the far line to give her a mini-break from which she went on to close out the match.

13th semi-final

Novak Djokovic got a free pass into the semi-finals when his quarter-final opponent, Australian Alex de Minaur, withdrew with a hip injury hours before his match with Djokovic.

The walkover places Djokovic in the Wimbledon semi-finals for the 13th time, equalling Roger Federer for the most by a man in tournament history, where he will meet Lorenzo Musetti.

Fritz stopped

Musetti, the 25th-seed, saved some of his best tennis for the end as the Italian moved into his first grand slam semi-final by outlasting big-hitting American 13th seed Taylor Fritz 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-2, 3-6, 6-1.

"I don't realise yet what I've done. First of all I want to thank all the Italian crowd who are here to support us," Musetti said on court.

"We were joking about trying to play to the big stage at Wimbledon. I've never tried Court One and Centre Court. I played a fantastic match, because Taylor was in great shape.

Reuters, AP/PTI