Wilkins, making his debut in the senior European Championships, earned a 2-0 semi-final win in the Turkish city over the Italian who earned gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games and has won five continental titles.

Wilkins will next meet Erman Eltemur of Turkey, who reached the final with a 3-0 win over Hamza Turulja of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It was a great day for young and up-and-coming athletes as Aicha Zakia Boussebaa of Hungary and Ivana Perovic of Serbia also upset the odds in reaching the final of women's kumite over-68kg.

Bousebaa, 23, reached her first senior final with a 4-3 win over Nancy Garcia of France.

Twenty-year-old Perovic, the 2019 junior world champion, reached her first continental final with a 1-0 win over Lucika Lesjak of Croatia.

There was a similar story in the men's kumite over-84kg, where Luca Costa of Belgium and Andjelo Kvesic of Croatia will fight for their first continental crown in the final.

Costa beat Ryzvan Talibov of Ukraine in the semi-finals 1-0 and Kvesic, the 2019 European bronze medallist, earned a 6-1 victory over Ryzvan Talibov of Scotland.

In men's kumite under-84kg, Enes Garibovic of Croatia and Daniel Gyorgy of Hungary also shocked the frontrunners to become new finalists in the category.

Garibovic defeated Petar Spasenovski of North Macedonia in the semi-finals 3-0 while Gyorgy beat Walid Deghali of Belgium 2-1.

Meanwhile, the title-deciding bout of women's kumite under-61kg will involve 24-year-old Anna Miggou of Germany and 29-year-old Ingrida Suchankova of Slovakia.

Miggou reached her first-ever continental final following a 1-0 victory over Laura Sivert from France.

Suchankova, who has three continental bronze medals, beat Anita Serogina of Ukraine 6-1 in her semi-final.

Eda Eltemur made it to her first continental gold-medal bout after upsetting Alizee Agier of France by Hantei or decision 0-0 in women's kumite under-68kg.

Her rival in the final will be Miroslava Kopunova of Slovakia, who claimed a convincing 6-0 victory over 2021 continental runner-up Vicky Panetsidou of Greece.

The host nation and Spain will compete for  domination of the kata competition.

Spain’s Olympic women’s champion Sandra Sánchez finished as top qualifier with 26.0, and will have a title-deciding contest involving Dilara Bozan of Turkey, who totalled 24.74 in qualifying.

This will be a repeat of the last European women’s kata final.

The final of men's kata will also see history repeating itself as Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Damian Quintero of Spain and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Ali Sofuoglu of Turkey will contest for the title.

Sofuoglu topped his pool with a score of 26.14 to the 25.96 amassed by Quintero, who is seeking a seventh European title.