One match too far for ’emotionally drained’ Katie Boulter at Wimbledon

A drained Katie Boulter admitted she ran out of steam as her fine Wimbledon run ended in disappointing fashion with a one-sided defeat by Harmony Tan in the third round.

Boulter produced the best result of her career by upsetting last year’s runner-up Karolina Pliskova on Thursday but was unable to get into the match against Tan, who has built on her first-round victory over Serena Williams brilliantly and is through to the last 16 at a grand slam for the first time.

Tan, ranked three places higher than Boulter at 115, was in control from the start and eased to a 6-1 6-1 victory in just 51 minutes.

Boulter went into Wimbledon on the back of strong performances in Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne but has been enduring a tough time off court and was in tears during her on-court interview on Thursday after revealing her grandmother died earlier this week.

The 25-year-old said: “I think I’m just a little bit emotionally drained, if I’m honest. It’s been a long few weeks. I’m not going to even talk about this week. I think this week was the cherry on top.

“But I’ve been working so hard for a long period of time, getting through an injury to start with is a huge, huge struggle, and I made it through, and I’m here and played some amazing tennis week in, week out. I’ve played a lot of matches. I sort of went from zero to a hundred quite quickly.

I know I can compete with these players week in, week out at this level.- Katie Boulter

“This week has probably been the tipping point. I’ve played some great matches. It’s also been very emotional. I think today was one step too far for me. Credit to her, she was playing some tough, tough tennis. Clearly it was a bit much.”

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