On day six of Wimbledon, British hopes in the singles are at an end.
A year after Cameron Norrie surprised with a run to the semi-finals, Katie Boulter bowed out in a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Elena Rybakina to mean no home hopes in the fourth round.
Boulter arrived on court with a wide smile and to rapturous applause from an expectant audience, some perhaps concerned about Merton Council’s 11pm curfew, which had perhaps proved Andy Murray’s earlier undoing.
The time checkers among the 15,000 need not have worried. After a first set which lasted just 26 minutes, that smile turned to a grimace allied to concerned looks from her box, including boyfriend Alex de Minaur.
Asked of the threat of Boulter beforehand, the defending Wimbledon champion had graciously said “anyone can beat anyone”, insisting her opponent was something of an unknown.
Both players served well in their opening service games to ensure it was level at 1-1 but, for Boulter, there followed a string of seven consecutive lost games.
An aggressive player in her own right, whose Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong had spoken beforehand of her love for the big occasion, she just didn’t get a chance to settle after game two.
The Moscow-born Kazakh’s ball striking was just so clean and clinical not to mention rapid – averaging 10mph faster on her forehand than her opponent.
There had been hopes of a potential upset with Rybakina having been undone by a virus at the French Open, which also ruled her out of any pre-Wimbledon grass-court tournaments.
In her opening match against American Shelby Rogers, she did not indicate a Wimbledon defence was in the offing and also struggled at points against the mercurial Alize Cornet.
The world rankings suggested this should be one-sided – Boulter is ranked 89th – but It was a performance that indicated the world No3 could yet become a multiple Grand Slam winner at the end of next week.
Boulter has done remarkably well to win her first WTA Tour title this summer – in Nottingham last month – having finally recovered from a string of injuries but there is still a mountain to climb to get among the world’s elite for the 26-year-old.
With the roof closed after the earlier downpours in the preceding match, the noise was electrifying as the home player walked on to court appearing to relish the occasion.
Boulter was watched, among others, by her grandfather Brian, who had been at Wimbledon a year ago to witness her granddaughter in action two days after his own wife’s death.
For him and the rest of the Boulter camp, this must have been a painful and chastening watch. She was broken to go 2-1 down and again at 4-1 despite having been 40-0 at the time, a backhand swat into the net accounting for the double break.
When the string of seven lost games finally drew to a close following an excellent service game, it finally brought back the Boulter smile.
The only other glimmer of hope emerged with Rybakina 4-1 up in the second set but 0-30 down on serve. The hope was shortlived, Rybakina recovered and the match was, once and for all, out of the Briton’s reach and over well within the hour.
