Nick Kyrgios reached his first Grand Slam singles semi-final with a straight-set success over Chile’s Cristian Garin at Wimbledon.

Having reached a second Wimbledon quarter-final eight years after his first, the 27-year-old put in a strong serving performance to advance.

He will face either Spanish second seed Rafael Nadal or American Taylor Fritz.

Kyrgios fell to his back, arms spread out, as a missed shot from Garin confirmed his place in the last four.

“I never thought I’d be in the semi-final of a Grand Slam,” Kyrgios said.

“I thought that ship had sailed – that I may have wasted that window in my career.”

The world number 40 is the lowest-ranked men’s semi-finalist at SW19 since 2008, when 75th-ranked Marat Safin and 94th-ranked Rainer Schuettler advanced.

Garin, 26, had produced a superb comeback performance in the previous round to beat another Australian, Alex de Minaur, but could not keep out Kyrgios in the key moments.

The result came a day after it was confirmed Kyrgios will appear in court in Australia next month in relation to an allegation of common assault.

Kyrgios serves way to victory

Kyrgios was well received by the crowd on Court One and performed well when it mattered most, saving eight of the nine break points he faced, hitting 17 aces and winning 73% of points on his first serve.

He made the slower start of the pair, broken to love in the first game of the match by a player who came back from two sets down in the previous round.

Caught between admonishing his box far too much and not getting enough support, Kyrgios settled enough to break back and save two opportunities on his own serve at 4-4.

A shanked forehand from Garin handed his opponent the first set and Kyrgios dug himself out of a hole in the opening game of the second, dragged back from 40-15 to deuce before holding.

However, a superb move to the net and volley wrongfooted Garin, giving Kyrgios the break for a 3-1 lead, with two big serves in the next game helping to keep the Chilean at bay.

An ace down the T secured the second set as the crowd grew increasingly involved. The Australian was unhappy with some noise from the crowd, with umpire James Keothavong asking several times for quiet during the rallies.

It felt inevitable that a tight third set would head to a tie-break, with Kyrgios taking it there with three wonderful volleys at the net.

Despite an unfortunate overrule on match point, with a Kyrgios return being called out before being corrected, he held steady to close out victory in two hours and 13 minutes.

“I felt I was playing on the back foot a lot. Garin’s a hell of a player,” Kyrgios added.

“I got lucky on a couple of break points so I’ll take that and will prepare for my next match.”