BOULTER: TAN WAS A STEP TOO FAR
BY
KATIE BOULTER admitted the emotions of a tough few weeks finally caught up with her after crashing out to Harmony Tan.
Boulter learned shortly after her firstround victory over Karolina Pliskova that her grandmother, Jill, had passed away.
And she acknowledged the toll that had taken on her, as well as a tough build-up to the Championships, after her 6-1 6-1 loss.
Boulter said: “Obviously it’s a pretty difficult defeat to take. I may have seen it coming a little bit — I started to reach an 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’m here and played some amazing tennis week in, week out.
“I’ve played a lot of matches. I went from zero to a hundred 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 this game was not on Centre Court or No.1. Tan agreed that favoured her, and said: “When I saw where it was, of course it was better for me – when you play a Brit on Centre Court, there are a lot of people for her.”