Katie eyes another Leicester miracle...
250-1 shot Boulter aims to emulate Foxes after her family heartache
More unlikely things have happened than Katie Boulter making a run deep into the heart of this year’s Wimbledon.
Her hometown football club, Leicester, winning the Premier League in 2016 for instance. or perhaps a teenager from Kent winning the US open within months of doing her A-levels.
Maybe something is in the air for the 25-year-old British No 4, as this has already been no ordinary week.
on Tuesday night, after her first-round victory, she was told her grandmother — one of the inspirations for her tennis career — had passed away.
Yesterday afternoon she defeated last year’s beaten finalist and the No 6 seed Karolina Pliskova 3-6, 7-6, 6-4 to make the third round. Next up will be Harmony Tan of France, the player who knocked out Serena Williams.
Forty minutes after yesterday’s victory Boulter ventured out on to the players’ roof lawn for an emotional reunion with her newly widowed grandfather Brian, sneaking up from behind to give him a hug.
Also there was her mother Sue, a stalwart of Leicestershire tennis who also happens to be a member of the All england Club.
Boulter said: ‘I was lucky because my grandpa managed to come down from Leicester, so we could keep him company and keep supporting him at the same time.’
While this week’s sad personal news is of a different dimension, she is no stranger to pursuing her career amid setbacks, particularly when it comes to a catalogue of varied injuries.
To her long-time coach, former British men’s No 1 Jeremy Bates, it was no surprise she still produced her best tennis under difficult circumstances.
‘She has worked incredibly hard and had an awful lot of adversity over a period of years,’ he said.
‘Yesterday was more of a thoughtful day for her after the news but she would obviously have wished to do what her grandparents wanted. She has already proved she has mental strength through the tough times.
‘She got to her highest ranking in early 2019 and missed seven months with a back issue and then Covid. She performs well on a big court, look at her record in the Billie Jean King Cup for GB. To get over the line was massive after what happened last year.’
He was referring to her narrow three- set defeat by then second seed Aryna Sabalenka, also on Centre Court. And that was a much less complicated week, emotionally, than this one.
‘I actually had a phone call from my grandpa the night before I played,’ said Boulter. ‘He didn’t mention anything, but he kind of gave me the inkling it might be coming.
‘I didn’t know anything until after my first match where my mum basically pulled me aside and told me.
‘She lived just down the road from the tennis club I started playing tennis at. I’ve spent a lot of time on the courts there with my grandparents and family.
‘Her favourite tournament was Wimbledon, that’s why it’s a special one for me. She’d watch every single match that was on the TV. It’s a lot of memories, ones I cherish.’
Boulter, who was later in the crowd watching her Australian boyfriend Alex de Minaur play Brit Jack Draper, had choked back tears in her interview on court, but was phenomenally composed as the match reached its climax.
The same thing happened a week before against the same Czech opponent at eastbourne, where she also won 6-4 in the decider.
Given Pliskova may hold the unwanted title of being the best player in the women’s game never to have won a Grand Slam, it is quite an achievement for the world No 118 to have beaten her twice in eight days.
But then Boulter has never lacked the shots, more the ability to keep her body intact long enough to allow her to use them at a prolonged run of tournaments.
As Bates pointed out: ‘Katie has got weapons and that is what you need in the modern women’s game. There are a lot of players out there who can hit the ball very hard and you have to stand toe-to-toe with them.’
Indeed, it was notable just how much more powerfully this British player could strike it than emma raducanu 24 hours earlier, as she struggled to respond to what Caroline Garcia threw at her.
It did not help Boulter’s cause that the roof was inexplicably shut when not a drop of rain was falling outside. The conditions could not have been more different to breezy eastbourne the week before.
After clinching the second- set tiebreak 7-4, Boulter hung in until 4-4 in the deciding set. She then reeled off a blitz of winners to break serve.
After that came another flurry to close out the match, rendering the towering Pliskova — who slammed down 13 aces — flailing.
In a fortnight already yielding unpredictable results, she could yet emerge as one of the surprise packages of the tournament.
Asked about Leicester’s odds when they won the Premier League, she responded: ‘What do the bookies say mine are? (Still 250-1). I hope I can take a leaf out of their book. I’ve got a lot of support from the Foxes. They were something else, maybe I can recreate that this year.’