"Hit the ball, you chicken," Katie Boulter yelled at herself after sailing a forehand long at the start of the second-set tie-break.
And like that, the missed ball was gone. The 19-year-old reset, held her nerve and saved three set points before closing out a 7-6(6), 7-6(7) victory over China’s Zhaoxuan Yang, her first senior match win at Wimbledon.
"It's pretty amazing - I'm pretty happy right now," beamed Boulter, still shaking with the emotion of it all. "I know a lot in these games come down to the main points. Today I handled them really, really well, and I had a great mindset on court. I'm pretty happy with the way I played."
Of the 13 British wild cards in the qualifying tournament, more than half are through to the second round. Four advanced in the Gentlemen's draw, while in the Ladies’ draw Boulter is now two wins away from the main event, along with Gabriella Taylor, Lisa Whybourn and Harriet Dart.
But the second round was not at the forefront of world No.592 Boulter's mind in the aftermath of the match. Rather, she reflected on the difficulties of 2015, a season riven with illness and injuries.
"This means so much to me because I spent last year sitting on the sidelines watching while I was ill," Boulter explained. "This, right here, for me, is a big win and I couldn’t be more proud of myself."
The Bank of England complex crowd played their part, helping Boulter forget the two missed match points at 5-4 in the second set and cheering her to a break in game 12 to force the tie-break.
As the two-hour contest wore on, the swell around Court 15 grew: “It was getting bigger and bigger! I was trying not to focus on them but they really helped me through, and I’m thankful for them.”
Backing herself behind a stinging serve and her fearless flat groundstrokes, Boulter recovered from that early tie-break setback to save three set points and bring up her third match point at 7-6 - only for the net cord to intervene, killing a Yang forehand dead on the soft turf.
On her fourth at 8-7 - the first on Boulter’s serve - she worked her way into the rally, defending well before Yang found the net to secure victory and a second-round showdown with Swedish No.13 seed Rebecca Peterson.
At the same time on neighbouring Court 16, Taylor found herself in a second-set battle with Portugal’s No.8 seed Lourdes Dominguez Lino, who struggled to deal with the 18-year-old’s gritty defensive display and became the highest-ranked seed to fall in the first round in a 7-5, 7-6(8) defeat.
It had started so well for both Maia Lumsden and Katy Dunne, who both fell after taking the first set. Austria’s Barbara Haas produced the three-set comeback against Dunne, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, while Lumsden was beaten 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 by Czech Tereza Smitkova, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon just two years ago.
But as the light began to fade over Roehampton, there was still time for more British success. First Lisa Whybourn sealed a hard-fought 7-6(2), 7-5 victory over Claire Feuerstein of France, before Harriet Dart surged past China’s Fangzhou Liu 7-6(2), 6-3.
