Wimbledon: Everything you need to know about Katie Boulter
- Published
Wimbledon 2022: Watch Katie Boulter come from a set down to beat Karolina Pliskova
Wimbledon 2022 on the BBC |
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Venue: All England Club Dates: 27 June-10 July |
Coverage: Live across BBC TV, radio and online with extensive coverage on BBC iPlayer, Red Button, Connected TVs and mobile app. |
Katie Boulter recorded the biggest win of her career in beating former world number one Karolina Pliskova but if you only tune into tennis once a year when Wimbledon rolls around, you may not be too clued up on the British number three.
The 25-year-old's win over Pliskova - the runner-up at SW19 12 months ago - on Thursday put her into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time, having made her debut at a major in 2017.
Her latest win was an emotional one, coming two days after her grandmother passed away, but a victory of such magnitude shows her career is on the way back up after several injury-blighted years.
So, who is Katie Boulter?
Boulter in brief
Tennis runs in the blood of Leicester-born Boulter, with her mother having been a county-level player with a handful of Great Britain appearances herself.
Boulter first picked up a racquet at the age of five, first representing GB at eight, with beating her older brother James - now a venture capitalist and talent agent - the biggest motivator for the youngster.
Her breakthrough year came in 2018, when she won her first ITF 25k and 60k titles, before reaching her first WTA quarter-final at the Nottingham Open as a wildcard.
That led to reaching the final of the 100k grass-court event in Southsea, where she lost to Kirsten Flipkens, before receiving a wildcard for the Wimbledon main draw. There, she was knocked out in the second round by Naomi Osaka, but ended the year with a top-100 world ranking.
Katie Boulter will play Harmony Tan on Saturday on number two court
At the beginning of 2019 she reached the second round at the Australian Open and a career-high ranking of 82, but the then-British number two was injured playing for her country against Kazakhstan in a Fed Cup tie in April.
A stress fracture of the back sidelined her for six months - an "extremely difficult" period - but she returned to Grand Slam action in Melbourne at the start of 2020, rediscovering some of her best tennis before another break from the majors was enforced by the coronavirus pandemic.
She used that time to build her physical and mental strength, as well as volunteering for Age UK, and made her Centre Court debut at Wimbledon in 2021, where she lost in the second round to Aryna Sabalenka.
From injuries and illness to inspiring return
Injuries have seemed to follow Boulter wherever she goes, most recently a leg injury forcing her to retire from the WTA event in Lyon in March and miss the entire clay-court swing.
But her troubles had started years earlier, when a flare-up of chronic fatigue syndrome in late 2014 worsened throughout the following year.
The energy-sapping condition forced her to take a year out from tennis, a daily walk her only form of exercise and an escape from her bed as she watched her world ranking tumble. A trip to Wimbledon that year to watch her friends in action proved the tipping point and the ultimate motivation to get herself back on that stage.
Her chronic fatigue is something that she continues to manage, and it plagued her rehabilitation from her back injury in 2019. But in January 2021, she told the Guardian, external she felt she had "officially conquered it".
Turn the clock forward to the present day and Boulter, now ranked 118th, looks to finally be on the way back up, with recent wins over players including Alison Riske, Caroline Garcia and Pliskova in the weeks before play started at the All England Club.
Off the court, she is in a relationship with men's world number 27 Alex de Minaur, with the Australian paying tribute to his girlfriend - who was watching from the stands - after his Court One win over Jack Draper on Thursday.
"Before we talk about my match, can we just talk about Katie Boulter today? I mean, she had a pretty good win herself," he said.
Wimbledon 2022: Katie Boulter dedicates her win against Karolina Pliskova to her gran
Next up for Boulter on Saturday is Serena Williams' conqueror Harmony Tan of France.
If she wins that she will join British compatriot Heather Watson in the last 16 and the second week of a Slam for the first time.
She will take inspiration from two fairytale sporting successes - Emma Raducanu's US Open victory, and her beloved Leicester City's Premier League title win in 2016.
"I hope I can take a leaf out of their book," she said. "I've got a lot of support from the Foxes.
"What [Raducanu] did was astonishing. I'd love to do what she's done. You never know, one day it might happen."