sport news Katie Boulter crashes out of Wimbledon trends now

19 shares

37

View
comments

At the centre of attention but on the fringes of the grounds, Katie Boulter’s heartening charge at Wimbledon came to a subdued conclusion on Saturday. The defeat on her big day will sting, though the manner of it will hurt considerably more.

It was brutal and decisive, underwhelming and magnificent, depending on which side of the divide you called for – the plucky underdog from Britain or the plucky underdog from France. Sadly for home interests, Harmony Tan was relentlessly good and Boulter just didn’t turn up.

She was crushed, pushed off the rollercoaster in 51 minutes by a woman having the time of her life. We can likely make the argument that this match would have been tighter, a little more balanced, if Boulter had been given an appointment on Centre Court rather than Court 2, as seemed appropriate after she beat last year’s finalist Karolina Pliskova to reach the third round.