HARRIET DART FIGHTS BACK TEARS TO EDGE PAST KATIE BOULTER IN THRILLER
Rip up the history books. Prepare the bunting. Because for the first time in 40 years, three British women will be in the last 32 of Wimbledon after Harriet Dart survived a wild and nervy encounter to beat her compatriot Katie Boulter 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8).
It wasn’t always a match of the highest quality, to put it mildly, given there were 109 unforced errors to just 56 winners. But as the British No 1 and No 2 slugged it out across nearly three hours, it became increasingly compelling especially with Boulter struggling to control her gunslinger forehand, and Dart her frayed emotions.
Related: Wimbledon 2024 day four: Dart beats Boulter, Fearnley takes set off Djokovic and more – live
Yet somehow Dart fought her way back from 6-2 down in the final set tiebreak to record the best victory of her career.
”I wear my emotions on my sleeve so you see everything how I’m thinking, unfortunately,” she joked, after joining Emma Raducanu and Sonay Kartal in the third round. “My head-to-head is absolutely woeful against her so I wasn’t expecting too much. But at the same time I just tried my best out there and even though I was down in that tie-break I just thought ‘give it everything, no regrets’.”
The crowd on No 1 court certainly lapped it up. The last time British women were this successful at Wimbledon, in 1984, Frankie Goes To Hollywood topped the charts with Two Tribes. And the British fans here were also torn down the middle, with those who cheered on Boulter, and her aggressive style, and others who were shouting for Dart, whose nerves were so apparent they could have been put next to her sponsor’s logo.
But this match was not only suffused with nerves but needle too. Last year Dart accused Boulter of being “unprofessional” in her celebration after winning. While in the buildup to Wimbledon she also offered to bet the umpire £50,000 that she was right about a disputed line call during another loss to Boulter. For her this match was not only about victory, but about settling a score.
The first set was a coin flip, with both players struggling to find their rhythm. At 2-1, Dart had three chances to break, only to let it slip. The next game, Boulter ruthlessly took advantage to break her opponent. It proved to be enough as Boulter took the set 6-4 in 47 minutes. Between them the pair had hit 40 errors.
Dart’s response? To reduce the errors and increase her resolve. She broke early to lead 2-0, again to make it 4-0 up. And even though she then threw up a stinker of a service game – which included three double faults in a row – it didn’t ultimately matter as she levelled the match.
It was now Boulter’s turn to halt the slide, but at 2-1 up she missed three break points to turn the screw and looked to have paid the price when Dart broke her in the next game on the sixth attempt.
Boulter had never lost against a British opponent in a main tour match but that proud record was looking under desperate threat at 2-4 and breakpoint down. But she survived and, at the third attempt, broke back to make it 4-4 in the final set.
There were more adventures before the final set tiebreak but Dart looked the more fragile – serving down serves as slow as 62mph that Boulter failed to take advantage of.
The British No 1 seemed to have the momentum at 6-2 in the tiebreak before losing the next four points. But at 8-8 Boulter sprayed yet another makeable forehand metres over the baseline to give Dart matchpoint, before an error ended it in Dart’s favour.
Earlier in the day another Briton in the second round, Yuriko Lily Miyazaki, lost 6-0, 6-0 to the 14th seed Daria Kasatkina.
The Russian was a 100-1 outsider for this tournament, but she knows her way around grass and could meet Raducanu later in the tournament. And she certainly was much too good for Miyazaki, who hit 31 unforced errors and seven winners.
2024-07-04T15:41:56Z dg43tfdfdgfd