Liam Broady stuns Wimbledon 12th seed Diego Schwartzman

What will Liam Broady do with his £120,000 prizemoney for reaching the third round of Wimbledon? “I might just withdraw it all,” said Broady on Thursday night, “and just, like, lie on it.”

At 28, Broady has been searching for this sort of payday throughout a decade’s worth of professional tennis. He was an outstanding junior who made the final of the Wimbledon boys’ event, only to struggle with the transition to the main tour.

Despite his athleticism, and his compact left-handed game-style, Broady has never managed to climb higher than No116 in the world rankings. But on Thursday, by outlasting noted road-runner Diego Schwartzman over five brutally physical sets, he proved that he has finally arrived. Better late than never.

“Every player has to have a big win on a big court,” said Dave Sammel, Broady’s stalwart coach, and a man who has been at the heart of British tennis for three decades. “For Liam, this is his moment. I was pretty calm – then I thought it was gone when Schwartzman came back. But he found a way and that is what makes a top player. Everyone knows how long his journey has been.”

Played on Court 3, the match was the antithesis of the John Isner-Kevin Anderson ace-fest from 2018. With Broady standing 6ft tall and Schwartzman just 5ft 7in, this was a Lilliputian contest by the lofty standards of professional tennis. Between them, they served only 12 aces in 296 points, so there was a lot of running before Broady finally surged across the finish line by a 6-2, 4-6, 0-6, 7-6, 6-1 margin.

Afterwards, Broady sounded almost surprised by his own feat of endurance. To win a 3hr 47min slugfest against one of the acknowledged beasts of the tour was a striking achievement in itself, and even more so when you consider