Cathy Boulter advanced to the second round. Photo: Getty Images/Sarah Steer
“I felt love there today,” she said. Cathy Boulter, Britain's No. 1, ruled the crowd as confidently as she hit the ball in a thrilling first-round win.
Shaking her fists and gazing at the audience, which included her Australian boyfriend Alex de Minaur, Boulter fired herself up to incredible levels of intensity. In the final stages of a 6-4, 6-0 thrashing of Diana Parry, it looked like she was crushing the winners by every point.
“British fans have convinced me,” Boulter said after her most one-sided win at Grand Slam level, as well as her first US Open main draw win. “When you hear little kids calling out your name, it pushes you. It makes you think for a second, «Hey, I want to be here and these are the matches I want to play.»
This is Boulter: a woman who would rather be on Broadway than hide in a repertory theater. Until Emma Radukanu gets back in shape and fitness, she will be starring in Britain, a role she loves. Admittedly, Court 6 is not one of the largest grounds in Flushing Meadows.
Tucked away in a row of three parallel courts, it can accommodate a maximum of 800 fans. But the unique electricity of the US Open, with all the crowds and flowing musical interludes, made it feel like the Colosseum.
«What I like is that these front courts have matches all the time,» said Boulter, who will play Chinese qualifier Yafan Wang in the second round. “I needed to focus and stay in the moment, and not hear everything that was happening on other courts, which I did incredibly well today.”
Katie Boulter was too strong for Diane Perry. Photo: Getty Images/Sarah Steer
After Boulter completed an evasive start to deploy some flashy shots, there was no room to spare, and she swung her arm as freely and gracefully as a woman gliding over the rocks on the beach. Parry, ranked 88th, is a stylish Frenchwoman who plays like a cheap version of Amelie Mauresmo, the 2006 Wimbledon champion. But her performance is as ineffective as it is beautiful.
With the heavy balls they use here, her one-handed backhand proved especially dangerous, often failing so much that it was easy for Boulter to get away. By the end of this 82-minute debacle, Boulter had to remind herself not to lose her concentration, that much was her level of dominance. Asked about her satisfaction with the «donut» of the second set (tennis slang for 6-0), she replied: «It was important to me because I really wanted to challenge myself.»
When Boulter gets into shape, everything seems so simple that you might think that you are watching the world champion. And yet, for most of her career, she lacked consistency in every sense—whether we're talking about her patchy fitness record or just landing balls inside those pesky white lines. This is largely due to chronic fatigue, which she suffered from as a teenager, which limited the time she could devote to training. Only now, at the age of 27, she managed to partially catch up.
«There will always be 16-year-olds who are incredibly successful,» Boulter said. “This is not the case for me and I was trying to play the long game. I had to dig myself out of several holes to get to where I am now. But I feel like I can jump off the base I've built.»
Having started the year at No. 136 in the world, Boulter has already done enough to be outside the top 50 when the next set of rankings are released. Her fortunes changed in June, a bit by accident, when she made the most of an exhausted field to win her first WTA title on Nottingham's grass courts. Now that she's ranked high enough to stay at the top level of the competition, her passion for the big stage should keep her engine in a good purr.
The draw opens beautifully for Boulter
Boulter's comfortable win — like Lily Miyazaki's the day before — seemed all the more welcome after the slump that British women's tennis had experienced earlier in the year. The French Open in May was the first major tournament in nearly 14 years to go without a Briton, and Wimbledon would have been the same had the All England Club not generously provided a wild card.
In early summer, Boulter was asked about the deficit, and he insisted that it would only be a temporary break. It so happened that she did more than anyone else to prove her case.
«It's nice to look back and celebrate this moment,» she said after defeating Parry. «I always felt that a lot of [British] girls would be in the 100s.»
On the face of it, Boulter's tie opened about an hour later when Wan beat France's seventh seed Carolina Garcia in straight sets. However, this outcome may prove to be an ambiguous blessing. Wang is now on an 11-game winning streak and is the kind of determined runner who always makes you play one more ball.
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