Katie Boulter admonished her absent boyfriend Alex de Minaur on court for not being there to see her successfully defend the Rothesay Open, but then claimed he was her inspiration.
Boulter and de Minaur have a nifty habit of collecting trophies together and as soon as the Australian had triumphed in the Libema Open in the Netherlands, Boulter was draining her reserves to defeat former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova 6-4, 3-6, 6 defeat. -2 in Nottingham.
When the tennis power couple completed an earlier double in March, De Minaur came in from the Mexican Open to watch Boulter win her first WTA title in San Diego. So his no-show on Sunday was duly noted with a waspish aside in an on-court interview.
“We’ll have to talk about that tonight and see if we’re still together,” she announced.
Well, they talked and it turned out that De Minaur wasn’t having it.
“He’s still having a tough day. No, I’m joking. He called me right after,” Boulter said. “I play it a lot, but it’s incredible, it really is. I don’t know why or how it happens every time we win these titles the same week, but there is clearly something, something that drives us forward.
“To be honest, I got a lot of inspiration from him this morning. I looked at it in the back and before I went out today I said to myself, keep believing, keep trusting.
She did this under test conditions. She can look back with satisfaction at having beaten both the concertina effect of the rain-affected schedule and the former Wimbledon finalist.
Boulter was back on Center Court just over two hours after her grueling semi-final victory over Emma Raducanu, but found the resolve to come back from a set down for the third time in five matches in Nottingham.
Boulter’s victory capped a golden day for British tennis, while Jack Draper’s victory in Stuttgart was a golden day in every sense. The last time Britain achieved male and female tour-level victories on the same day was 53 years ago, when Roger Taylor and Ann Jones took the honours.
The Center Court crowd, previously divided in their affection with Raducanu on the other side of the net, responded to Boulter’s courageous efforts in the evening final.
“Today was brutal. The audience won me over,” she said. “It would have been very easy to let it go after a set, but I didn’t. I have been quite ill especially the last few days. That was another challenge that I had to overcome and continue to push myself through.
“I was almost really tired – we were both struggling – we were just trying to get over the line and in the end I just had to try to support myself and just keep swinging.”
There is an air of steel about Boulter these days, but also of real confidence. It was a win that set her up well for the rest of the grass season, starting with the Birmingham Classic this week.
Unsurprisingly she requested a Tuesday start given her efforts in Nottingham.
The marathon semi-final victory over Raducanu lasted two days and lasted three hours and 13 minutes. It was a close match that came down to Boulter’s superior serve as she came through 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 against the 2021 US Open champion.
Raducanu, who played with a strapped left knee after a bad fall before play was suspended after the first set on Saturday, could not reach the same heights as the night before.
The world number 30 put pressure on Raducanu’s failed serve and a dramatic decisive set eventually broke out with successive breaks.
“It was quite difficult – there was a lot of crosswinds,” Raducanu said. “I thought it was a very competitive match, quite a high level. Obviously I’m disappointed, but it was a good start to the grass season for me. I lost, but I tried and I fought and even though the tennis wasn’t always there, I still feel like I was mentally in the fight, so I think that’s a big goal that I have this week I performed really well.”
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