Katie Boulter chides then praises boyfriend Alex de Minaur after ...
Katie Boulter successfully defended her Rothesay Open title - Getty Images/Nathan Stirk
Katie Boulter admonished her absent boyfriend Alex de Minaur on court for not being present to see her successfully defend the Rothesay Open only to claim he was her inspiration afterwards.
Boulter and De Minaur possess the handy habit of collecting trophies in tandem and no sooner had the Australian triumphed in the Libema Open in the Netherlands than Boulter was emptying her reserves to beat former World No 1 Karolina Pliskova 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in Nottingham.
When the tennis power couple did a previous double in March, De Minaur jetted in from the Mexican Open to see Boulter win her first WTA title in San Diego. So his no-show on Sunday was duly noted with a waspish aside in Boulter’s on-court interview.
“We will have to be talking about that tonight and see if we are still together,” she announced.
Well, they talked and it turned out De Minaur was off the hook.
“He’s still having a tough day. No, I’m kidding. He called me straight after,” said Boulter. “I play on it a lot but he’s incredible, he really is. I don’t know why or how it happens every single time that we just win these titles the same week, but there’s obviously something there, something pushing us on.
“Honestly, I actually drew a lot of inspiration from him this morning. I was watching it in the back and before I went out today, I just said to myself, keep believing, keep trusting.”
She did so in testing circumstances. She can reflect with satisfaction she beat the concertina effect of the rain-impacted scheduling as well as the former Wimbledon finalist.
Boulter was back on Centre Court just over two hours after her gruelling semi-final victory over Emma Raducanu but found the resolve to come back from a set down for the third time in five matches at Nottingham.
Her win crowned a golden day for British tennis with Jack Draper’s victory in Stuttgart making it a memorable 24 hours all round. The last time Britain had male and female tour-level wins on the same day was 53 years ago when Roger Taylor and Ann Jones did the honours.
The Centre Court crowd, split earlier in their affections with Raducanu on the other side of the net, responded to Boulter’s valiant efforts in the evening final.
“Today was brutal. The crowd got me over the line,” she said. “It would have been very easy to let it go after a set and I didn’t. I’ve been pretty sick the last few days especially as well. That was another challenge for me to overcome and just to keep pushing myself through.
“I was bordering very, very tired – we were both struggling – we were just trying to get over the line and ultimately, I just had to try to back myself and just keep swinging.”
There is a steel about Boulter these days as well as a real confidence. It was a win which sets her up well for the rest of the grass-court season, starting with the Birmingham Classic this week.
Not surprisingly, she has requested a Tuesday start given her exertions in Nottingham.
The marathon semi-final victory over Raducanu spanned two days and lasted three hours and 13 minutes. It was a taut match which came down to Boulter’s superior serving as she came through 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 against the 2021 US Open champion.
Raducanu, playing with a strapped left knee after a heavy fall before play was suspended after the first set on Saturday, could not reach the same heights as the previous evening.
Boulter, the world No 30, put Raducanu’s misfiring serve under pressure and eventually it cracked in a dramatic deciding set which featured successive breaks.
“It was quite difficult – there were a lot of crosswinds,” said Raducanu. “I thought it was a really competitive match, pretty high level. Obviously I’m disappointed but it was, for me, a good start to the grass-court season. I lost but I tried and I fought and even if the tennis wasn’t always there, I feel like mentally I was in the fight so I think that’s a big objective that I really did well this week.”
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