Swan has wings clipped but her fledgling career can still take flight

The sun was barely over the yardarm than Katie Swan had been swept off No3 Court in an indecent hurry. Having been billed almost as the next Steffi Graf on the strength of her straight-sets filleting of the world No 36, the 19-year-old was subjected by Mihaela Buzarnescu, a Romanian PHD graduate, to what Basil Fawlty’s red Austin might recognise as a “damn good thrashing”. The damage? 6-0, 6-3, in a shade over 74 minutes. Some of the patrons’ drinks lasted longer.

As a toppling from one’s pedestal, it was crushing. The glamorous trappings of SW19 one week, the backwaters of the American hardcourt circuit the next.

And yet there was reason to suppose that Swan’s tame exit yesterday signalled something more than British tennis’s ritualised celebration of mediocrity. Any teenager who can dismantle Irina-camelia Begu, a winner of 15 career titles, for the loss of just four games is one worth trumpeting.

The sport clearly thinks so, too, with Swan already signed up to Andy Murray’s marketing agency, 77. Since she was seven, when a coach in Portugal pronounced that she would be a professional player, she has consistently delivered on the faith invested in her.

There are parallels between her story and that of Laura Robson, the last British woman to cut such a swathe across these lawns. Both their fathers work in the oil industry, and both young women made their first splash in grand glam junior finals: Robson at Wimbledon in 2008, at 14, and Swan (right) at the Australian Open three years ago, aged 15.

Perhaps the most galling aspect of Swan’s experience was that she succumbed to an oppo- nent even less versed on grass than her. Buzarnescu, 30, is making her maiden appearance in the Wimbledon main draw, having rebuilt her game after serious knee and shoulder injuries, but she was far too polished for Swan to stand much of a chance, with an unforced error count of 15 to 27 in her favour telling its own story. Swan is furnished with enviable natural talents, with rapier groundstrokes off both flanks and a first serve that can touch 115mph. But there is also a rawness, a susceptibility to careless mistakes that only increased exposure at this level can cure. The wisdom of coach Diego Veronelli, Heather Watson’s former mentor, will be crucial in building upon this week’s breakthrough.

Swan is shouldering greater national expectation than might be healthy at such a tender stage of her development. Robson’s wrist problems look terminal while Watson, once the clear British No1, is going nowhere quickly after a decisive first-round defeat by Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens. She could yet be the sparkling hope for whom the women’s game in this country has been waiting. For now, though, the cheerleaders will need to be patient.