NO MOORE FUN FOR TARA
Last Brit bows out of women’s draw as World No 227 is beaten
JUST for a glorious while, it looked as though Tara Moore would claim the breakthrough victory she has waited a whole career for.
Just for a while, a pleasing while, it looked as though the Wimbledon ladies’ singles draw might well continue with British involvement.
Moore, our last woman standing — the wildcard, the hopeful, the underdog —skipped back to her chair at the end of the second set having comprehensively turned the tide.
The No 3 Court audience — digging out their sunglasses and packing away their ponchos at long last after a day of rain delays — chanted her name with gusto.
One wag even tried to get a ‘Tara Moore’s on fire…’ chant going. Will Grigg has a lot to answer for.
As Moore sat there, a bundle of energy, the words seemed to tumble down from the stands and flow right through her.
Having been battered by Svetlana Kuznetsova in the opening set, all momentum was with her, transformed in the best 20 minutes of tennis Moore has likely played in her life.
It looked like the breakthrough victory was imminent. A career quite a few within the sport have dismissed as wasted, given the natural talent she possesses.
Unfortunately, that was the point her opponent, drawing on all those Grand Slams years, whacked down the hammer.
Moore, so bright and bouncy, wilted and faded before our eyes, returning to that underdog role we’ve seen so often in the past.
This was the first time Moore, the world No 227, some 213 places below Kuznetsova, had faced a top-20 ranked player in her career.
Most of the time it showed, but for a few games it didn’t. She was master of the contest, emphatically on top. The forehands, the backhands, even the lobs, fell beyond the Russian’s reach.
It was all the more remarkable given the fact Moore, 23, was the last Brit standing in the women’s draw. We’d seen Jo Konta, Laura Robson, Heather Watson, Naomi Broady and Katie Swan fall by the wayside.
The contest began at 4.53pm, but almost as soon as it started, they were forced off by another of those frustrating squalls that have pushed us ever-closer to a People’s Sunday.
Even by that early point, you sensed that Moore would be outclassed by her opponent, twice a Grand Slam champion.
She trailed by a break when that truly British summer vignette of umbrellas sprouting in the crowd saw the players back in the locker rooms for an hour-and-a-half.
Bright sunshine and a far more sparse crowd greeted their return, and Kuznetsova continued her methodical deconstruction of Moore, breaking for the second time with a bombardment of powerful strokes.
It wasn’t until the fifth game that Moore got on the board and by then Kuznetsova was in command. Indeed, when Moore resumed her baseline position for the start of the second set, the bright sunshine rouging her face, she looked like she was making up the numbers.
It was here that the teaching of her mentor Tony Lekic, also apparent in her first round win over the Belgian Alison Van Uytvanck, came to the fore.
Moore says Lekic has had a ‘monumental’ impact on the psychological side of her game and how it showed in the second set.
She was terrific in the three games in which she broke Kuznetsova, playing fearlessly, and looking solid on her service games. But in the third, experience prevailed.
Nonetheless, having now gone toe-to-toe with a leading player, Moore can take immense solace.
While she wasn’t able to replicate Heather Watson’s thirdround progress last year, Moore might yet play a superior role to that of the great British underdog.