Katie Boulter continued to rediscover her form in the final weeks of her season as she reached the quarter-finals of the Hong Kong Open with a tough 7-6 (7), 6-4 win over Xiyu Wang of China.
Boulter endured a challenging few months after Wimbledon, compiling a 6-8 record between July and mid-October while failing to win consecutive matches at any event. But while many of Boulter’s peers have already started their off-season, her decision to play an extended Asian swing has paid off.
After reaching the semi-finals of the Tokyo WTA 500 event last week, Boulter has now strung together two solid performances in Hong Kong, a WTA 250 event, against lower ranked opposition. Wang, ranked No 100 in the world, has been Boulter’s only top 100 opponent in her five victories over the past two weeks but simply winning matches has allowed her to build her confidence and she has also gained a helpful number of points.
“That was quite a match,” said Boulter. “She’s an incredible opponent, she never lets up. Full credit to her, she just keeps hitting and she’s so talented. She made me work so hard today, which I’m not that happy about to be honest.”
This time, the victory required Boulter to navigate a marathon 78 minute opening set in which Boulter recovered from a break down at 2-4 to force a tiebreak. Wang is a tall, imposing 23 year-old who has been highly touted for a long time and possesses a massive lefty forehand. She refused to let Boulter go, eventually generating the first set point at 6-5 on Boulter’s serve.
Boulter saved the set point with a brilliant second serve down the T, forcing a return error from Wang before edging out the tiebreak on her second set point. Despite breaking serve early in the second set, Boulter was never comfortable but after relinquishing the break at 4-3 with a double fault after a lengthy service game, Boulter steadied herself and took the final two games of the match.
“I’m honestly, just a little bit too stubborn with myself to let myself go,” said Boulter. “I wish I could relax a little bit but I just wanted to keep fighting and keep doing the best that I could. She played some incredible tennis. A lot of power, a lot of finesse in her strokes. I just had to stay there as much as I possibly could. I’m proud of myself today.”
In her penultimate tournament of the season, Boulter, the second seed, will face either the No 7 seed Varvara Gracheva or Anastasia Zakharova for a place in the semi-finals.
