Katie Boulter fights back from the brink to topple ninth seed Paula Badosa

The Guardian

a day ago

At the start of a tension-filled final set on Centre Court, when she desperately needed to showcase the best of her abilities, Katie Boulter's game was in freefall. Her rapid‑fire start had given way to painful service issues and her unforced error count was growing with every point.
The 28-year-old Briton responded to those difficulties, however, with a demonstration of her resilience, digging deep at the end of three testing sets to produce one of the best wins of her career by toppling the ninth seed, Paula Badosa, to reach the second round of Wimbledon with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 victory.
The win marks the fourth top-10 victory of Boulter's career and her second at a grand slam tournament following her dramatic three-set win against the then No 7, Karolina Pliskova, on the same court in 2022.
'I think I got one of my first against Pliskova on this court,' Boulter said of her top-10 wins. 'The moment I stepped out here, it just reminded me of that from the first ball. I feel I have some really good juju. I played some really good stuff so I'm happy to be through to the next round.'
Having spent so much of her career competing on the lower level ITF circuit, Boulter has taken her game to a different level over the past few years, reaching a career‑high ranking of No 23 and winning three WTA titles, but a deep run at a grand slam tournament has continued to evade her. This victory is the perfect start as she attempts to make her mark at her home grand slam championship. She will face Argentina's Solana Sierra, a lucky loser, in the second round after the world No 101 defeated Olivia Gadecki on Monday.
A year ago Boulter entered Wimbledon in the best form of her life, seeded at the All England Club for the first time in her career, but she did not handle that new position well and endured a painful second-round defeat against her compatriot Harriet Dart. After struggling with a foot injury earlier in the year, her form has not matched her high ambitions but she believes she has the weapons to challenge all the top players on grass.
After waiting more than four hours for Carlos Alcaraz to close out his five‑set win against Fabio Fognini, Boulter and Badosa did not begin their match until 6:40pm, an astonishingly late start for the second match on day one.
The British No 2 opened up the match serving at an incredibly high level, landing 82% of first serves in her opening six games and hitting her spots brilliantly. She backed up her excellent serving by searching furiously for the first strike in every point and dominated the baseline with her supreme forehand.
Just as everything seemed to be flowing, momentum shifted suddenly at the start of the second set. Having struck just one double fault in the entire match, Boulter's serve fell apart. At 1-2, 30-30, she struck three double faults in the final four points of the game to meekly hand over Badosa's first break.
Her serve deteriorating, the rest of her game followed suit and unforced errors streamed from her racket. Across the net, her opponent dug into the rallies, giving nothing away as she maintained her depth and consistency, forcing as many errors from Boulter as she could.
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Those two sets perfectly encapsulated Boulter's strengths and limitations. Although she possesses massive weapons in her serve and forehand, which can trouble many of the best defences in the world, her second serve can also be one of her biggest weaknesses. When things are not perfectly in sync, she can struggle to adjust and problem-solve with her one-note attacking style.
For a while, it seemed like she could not escape those limitations. She opened the final set with another double fault to offer Badosa a fifth break point in the opening game, which the Spaniard took.
Boulter, though, kept on fighting. After immediately retrieving the break for 1-1, she re-established rhythm behind her first serve and she marched through her service games throughout the final set. At 5-4 with everything on the line and the Centre Court crowd urging her on, Boulter made her move, boldly attacking Badosa's serve as she closed out one of the most important victories of her career.
'Oh God, I was bricking it completely,' she said. 'I've played a lot of matches recently where I started out great but then kind of let it slip. I actually played one at Queen's [Club], which hurt me a lot. I just tried to compete today, fight, hope for the best, hope she missed and just kept pushing myself to be positive, go after the ball and make it happen. Today it actually happened so I'm thrilled.'