When you’ve beaten Serena Williams on Centre Court in your first Wimbledon match, Court 17 must seem a quiet affair. Here the applause reaches you in splatters rather than waves, and you can easily pick out the individual voice of your coach’s young niece shouting “Allez! Très bien! Continué!”
After Harmony Tan’s spotlight debut on Tuesday, the performance demanded of her on the outer fringes was no less testing – and nor was her response any less impressive. A 6-3, 6-4 scoreline belied the maturity and grit it took to defeat the gutsy Sara Sorribes Tormo in a two-hour encounter that threatened to leave both punchdrunk.
