Katie pays the price as drained Brit
A drained Katie Boulter admitted she ran out of steam as her finewimbledon run ended yesterday in disappointing fashion with a one-sided defeat to Harmony Tan in the third round.
Boulter produced the best result of her career by upsetting last year’s runner-up Karolina Pliskova on Thursday but was unable to get into the match against Tan, who has built on her first-round victory over
Serena Williams brilliantly and is through to the last-16 at a grand slam for the first time.
Tan, ranked three places higher than Boulter at 115, was in control from the start and eased to a 6-1 6-1 victory in just 51 minutes.
Boulter went into Wimbledon on the back of strong performances in Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne but has been enduring a tough time off court and was in tears during her on-court interview on Thursday after revealing her grandmother died earlier this week.
The 25-year-old said: “I think I’m just a little bit emotionally drained, if I’m honest. It’s been a long few weeks. I’m not going to even talk about this week. I think this week was the cherry on top.
“But 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.
“This week has probably been the tipping point. I’ve played some great matches. It’s also been very emotional. I think today was one step too far for me. Credit to her, she was playing some tough, tough tennis. Clearly it was a bit much.”
Wimbledon organisers faced criticism for not scheduling Boulter on a bigger court after her exploits against Pliskova, and there were plenty of empty seats on Court Two when play began at 11am.
Tan felt the decision helped her, saying: “When you play a Brit on Centre Court, I think there is a lot of
people for her. I like to play on a small court.”
Boulter had no complaints, though, adding: “You’re supposed to put the best matches there are out there on Centre Court and on Court One.
“We’ve got Iga Swiatek who is out there on an I don’t know how many matchwinning streak. I would never expect to be put ahead of players like that.”
Meanwhile, Coco Gauff failed to make the fourth round for the first time at Wimbledon after she went down to fellow American Amanda Anisimova on Centre Court.
French Open runner-up Gauff rose to prominence by making the last-16 at the All England Club in 2019 at the age of 15 with a run that included a victory over Venus Williams.
Gauff also made the fourth round last year but could not handle the level of 20th seed Anisimova, who clinched a 6-7 (4) 6-2 6-1 win.
It has put Anisimova, who made the semi-finals at Roland Garros in 2019, through to the fourth round atwimbledon for the first time.
Next up for Anisimova is Boulter’s conqueror Harmony Tan.