BOULTER GETS
Smiling assassin Harmony a step
THE emotions of a tough few weeks finally caught up with Katie Boulter when she crashed out to Harmony Tan. The British hope, 25, learned shortly after her first-round victory over France’s
Clara Burel that her grandmother,
Jill, had passed away.
She nevertheless recorded the win of her career over Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova to reach this stage but she acknowledged the toll it had all clearly taken on her yesterday after her 6-1 6-1 defeat in the third round.
Boulter said: “Obviously it’s a pretty difficult one to take.
“I may have seen it coming a little bit – I started to reach my emotional and physical point where I was struggling a little bit in the warm-up.
“I’m just a little bit emotionally drained.
“It has been a long few weeks and this week was the cherry on top.
“I’ve been working so hard for a long period of time, getting through an injury to start with is a huge, huge struggle, and I made it through and I’m here and played some amazing tennis week in, week out.
“I’ve played a lot of matches. I sort of went from zero to a hundred quite quickly and, yes, this week has probably been the tipping point. “Credit to her, she was playing some tough, tough tennis. Clearly it was a bit much.
“But, yes, this was not an easy one.”
Plenty was made of the fact thi game wasn’t put on Centre Court or No.1 Court, and Tan agreed it worked in her favour that it wasn’t.
The ever-smiling French sta (left), who beat Serena Williams in round one, said: “When I saw where it was, of course I thought it was better because when you play a Brit on Centre Court there are a lot of people for her.
“I like to play on a small court.” But Boulter added: “The crowd tried their best and I’m not sure whether I was playing on Centre Court or Court No.1 or Court 20 if that’s what was going to get me through.”
It took just 51 minutes for the British No.3 to be left packing her bags to leave. Court 3 is known as
‘Thewok’ due to how hot it gets when the sun shines. But Boulter was clap cold from the start to see her Wimbledon dream melt away in front of a shell-shocked home crowd.
The Leicester ace had felt on top of the world 48 hours ago after storming into the third round with a stunning win over No.6 seed Pliskova.
But she must have wanted to find somewhere to hide in the wake of a thrashing by unheralded Frenchwoman
Tan, who is fast emerging as the surprise star of the Championships.
Tan (right) produced some blistering tennis from start to finish to leave
Boulter trudging head down towards the locker rooms afterwards feeling like she’d just been hit by a bus.
The warning signs were there from the very first game when
Boulter saw her service broken.
As quick as a flash, she found herself 3-0 down and the relentless Tan showed no let-up with some laser-like winners en-route to taking the first set 6-1.
Boulter rallied briefly at the start of the second and slapped the side of her legs in a bid to get herself fired up.
She had been hoping to take some inspiration from two fairytale sporting successes – Emma Raducanu’s US Open victory last September and her beloved
Leicester City’s Premier League title win in 2016.
But Tan was proving just too fast and strong to produce the sort of beguiling tennis that made an absolute mockery of her world ranking of 115.
She was reeling off games faster than sun cream was being applied by those in the stands.
And one thrilling rally she won to take the fifth game, which included a recovery shot through her legs, summed up her unstoppable confidence.
There was still time for some rousing cheers as Boulter served to stay in the match at 5-1 down.
But a woeful double fault sealed her fate in fitting fashion on a morning to forget for the likeable Boulter, who will still head home with prize money of £120,000.