Best of British Seven home hopes through to second round
Johanna Konta (GB) beat Ana Bogdan (Belgium) 7-5, 6-2
Sunshine, a royal visit and seven British singles players into the second round. If we were coming up with the script for a perfect day at Wimbledon, the only thing missing would be a Cliff Richard cameo.
Yesterday began with the Duchess of Cambridge being greeted by All England Club bigwigs as she stepped out of her limousine, and finished with Paul Jubb – the new 19-year-old hope from Hull – putting up a brave but ultimately fruitless show against Joao Sousa on Court 17.
In between, Johanna Konta had bulldozed Romania’s Anna Bogdan out of her way with a performance that promised great things over the next week.
Meanwhile, on the outside courts, Dan Evans, Harriet Dart, Cameron Norrie and Jay Clarke also surged through.
After a relatively thin showing in the main grass-court warm-up tournaments – during which Kyle Edmund’s run to the Eastbourne semi-finals was the only noteworthy achievement – this is an absolute bonanza for British tennis.
The last time we could boast seven players in the second round of Wimbledon was in 2006, when Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski still roamed the earth.
To find a superior figure, you have to go all the way back to 1997 – the Jurassic, in tennis terms, when the grass was still slipperyquick enough for players to come to the net behind first and second serves.
It was easy to imagine the jubilation yesterday in Roehampton, where the staff of the Lawn Tennis Association must have been tempted to perform a yodelling war dance around the desk of the chief executive, Scott Lloyd. In truth, the outcomes on any given day are hugely contingent on all sorts of factors, from the climatic conditions to the draw – which this year favoured the home team by throwing up only one seeded opponent for the 10 British entrants. That was world No 16 Nikoloz Basilashvili, who edged out James Ward in an agonising five-setter.
But this is a results-driven business, and if the winning ratio had been 20 per cent rather than 70 per cent, the LTA would have had a metaphorical bucket of slurry poured over its head. So we should not begrudge it a moment in the sun.
Things are about to get substantially harder for many of these firstround winners, notably Clarke, whose reward is a crack at eighttime champion Roger Federer. But Konta has the look of a woman booking in for a long stay.
Admittedly, her second-round opponent will be no pushover. Katerina Siniakova won the doubles here last year with partner Barbora Krejcikova, so she can clearly move well on grass, and she also made a splash on the clay last month by ousting the then world No1, Naomi Osaka, from the French Open. Even so, this ought to be another winnable fixture for a woman on a strong run of form.
Yesterday’s 7-5, 6-2 victory was Konta’s 33rd of the season, and leaves her with a win-loss record of 21-6 since the start of Great Britain’s morale-boosting Fed Cup victory over Kazakhstan in April. On that front, the LTA can genuinely claim a large slice of credit. The capacity crowd at London’s Copper Box
Martina Navratilova unexpectedly compared her to a batsman driving through the covers
Arena inspired Konta to an extraordinary comeback win over Yulia Putintseva, and she has been riding a wave of confidence ever since.
In an echo of her fellow British No 1, Kyle Edmund, on Monday, Konta simply overpowered her opponent from the back of the court, dealing out 17 clean winners from the baseline to Bogdan’s measly two. She was hitting her backhand so low and flat over the net that the watching Martina Navratilova – who turns out to have some unexpected areas of expertise – compared her to a batsman driving through the covers.
Bogdan, who had come through qualifying, put up determined opposition, especially in the first set. But her dogged consistency was never enough to tease out a break of serve. Konta began to line the ball up beautifully in the second set, relaxing into the glamorous setting of the new No1 Court.
“It was really beautiful out there,” said Konta of an arena that has been refashioned at the massive cost of £200million. “It’s really similar to Centre Court aesthetically. With the roof, I mean. Acoustics-wise, I didn’t notice anything [different] but then I don’t notice a lot of things when I’m out on court.”
Something else that Konta did not notice during the match was the presence of royalty in the stands, even though she had exchanged a few words with the Duchess before her match.
She was keen to express enthusiasm, however, saying “It’s always exciting to have members of the Royal family come to this event. I think it adds just to the air of the place, makes it that much more special.”
Konta was in a buoyant mood, in any case. Wimbledon has been her most successful major in recent seasons, probably because she can stay at home with her boyfriend, Jackson Wade, a videographer who used to work for the LTA, and her beloved blue dachshund, Bono.
There was even time last night for a joke that combined duchesses and dogs in a way that might have been dangerous, had she not worded it neatly.
“The rule at Wimbledon is no pets allowed,” she said, when asked whether he might be attending the tournament. “Now that we’re talking about royals, we call him [Bono] HRH, his royal hund.”