As Elena Rybakina was reminded the previous afternoon, the sport’s most hallowed arena can shred the nerves of any player. Burrage, a British wildcard taking centre stage at Wimbledon for the first time in her career, performed her due diligence, seeking advice from Andy Murray as she prepared to face Daria Kasatkina, the Russian world No 11. Despite her trepidation, however, Burrage was determined not merely to endure the experience, but to savour it.

That was the least she deserved. At the age of 24, Burrage has overcome more injuries than most players suffer in a lifetime. She has had three ankle operations, suffered fractures of her knee, arm, rib and wrist, and at one point feared she may never play again. Small wonder, then, that she wept tears of joy after defeating Caty McNally, the American world No 67, in the previous round. If anyone deserved their moment in the sun – not that there was much of that around after another rain-lashed morning in Wimbledon – it was Burrage.

“There’s different ways you can go about it,” said Burrage. “I wanted to take it all in. I like using the crowd to my advantage and stuff, as well. I just wanted to have a look about. 

“It’s obviously a massive court. Never played on anything like that. So for me, instead of thinking it’s not a big deal, I wanted to embrace it. I feel like I did.

“I enjoyed the experience. That’s why the smile was on my face. It’s one of my dreams to walk out on to Centre Court. I’ve done that. If I can’t enjoy it, what else can I [enjoy]?”

When it came to the business of hitting tennis balls, however, enjoyment proved hard to come by for Burrage. Overwrought by the occasion early on, and outplayed by Kasatkina virtually throughout, she was soundly beaten, 6-0, 6-2 in exactly one hour. 

A clean, powerful ball-striker who likes to dictate from the baseline, Burrage showcased her quality during her run to a maiden tour-level final last month in Nottingham, where she defeated a trio of top-100 players in Magda Linette, Magdalena Frech and Alizé Cornet. Kasatkina, though, is a different kind of opponent, a master of court craft and geometry whose forehand alone is a study in subtle changes of pace, spin and trajectory. 

As Burrage struggled to quell her anxiety, mistiming her groundstrokes and double-faulting five times over the course of a wretched opening set, her woes were compounded by the Russian’s disruptive shot-making and metronomic consistency. To her credit, Burrage never allowed her head to drop during that early phase, greeting each minor success with a quiet clench of the fist even as the games flew by with alarming speed. 

The world No 108 was rewarded for her positivity early in the second set, where a drop volley brought up a first game point of the match on her own serve. Up in the Royal Box, David Beckham looked on expectantly. If Burrage was to avoid the nightmare scenario of a Centre Court whitewash, this was the moment. Seconds later, Kastakina screwed a backhand wide and Burrage, to her palpable relief, was finally on the scoreboard.   

With that hurdle overcome, the Briton went on to play her best return game of the contest, breaking to love with a sweeping forehand winner. Twice in the next game she came within a point of a 3-1 lead, but Kasatkina patiently bided her time, extending the rallies until her opponent strayed into error. To Burrage’s evident frustration, her momentum was then arrested further by a rain delay. There would be no way back.

“My next experience I feel like I’ll be more prepared,” said Burrage. “I’ll speak to my team about those nerves and how to deal with them a little bit better.  

“My opponent made me play so many balls. She missed like two or three in the first set. I missed a fair few. She’s probably my worst nightmare to play, someone who just makes balls. It wasn’t an easy matchup for me.

“She plays such long rallies… when I’m having to hit 10, 11, 12 shots, it is not easy. It’s not where I want to be.”

Kasatkina, for her part, was simply happy to be back at Wimbledon following last year’s ban on players from her homeland. One of few Russian players to publicly denounce the war in Ukraine, she was warmly received by the Centre Court crowd and no doubt further endeared herself to the British public with her empathy for Burrage’s plight.

“I think it was more difficult for her today to handle this pressure,” said Kasatkina, a finalist last week in Eastbourne. “I completely understand, playing at home, playing on the central court at Wimbledon, especially, it’s a lot of pressure.  

“You could see the beginning was very difficult for her to handle. I also was very nervous, to be honest, because the atmosphere in the central court, it’s electric. You can’t prepare for that, and this is how I felt entering the court. It’s very difficult.”

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Less than a month after the French Open became the first grand slam since 2009 to begin without a British woman in the draw, Katie Boulter completed a dream week for the home nation on the grass courts of the Nottingham Open, defeating Jodie Burrage 6-3, 6-3 to win the first all-British WTA final since 1977. 

Neither player had previously made a tour-level final, and to do so Boulter had to go through another compatriot, Heather Watson, in what was the first tour-level semi-final to be contested between two British women since 1975. After plumbing the depths in Paris, the domestic contingent have shown that the grass is decidedly greener on the other side of the Channel.

“I’m so proud of the girls this week we’ve all done tremendously well,” said Boulter, doubling down on her insistence earlier in the week that British tennis does not want for depth. 

With Andy Murray earlier winning a second ATP Challenger event in as many weeks on the same court, and Wimbledon only a fortnight away, the Britpack would indeed seem to be gathering momentum at just the right moment.

Boulter’s victory, which comes just a week after she overtook the injured Emma Raducanu in the rankings to become British No 1 for the first time, feels especially timely. Six weeks ago, when Raducanu dropped out of the top 100 as she began her recovery from wrist and ankle surgeries, it left Britain without an elite-level player for the first time since 2008. But after successfully negotiating a contest in which a first tour-level title and the British No 1 ranking were up for grabs for both players, Boulter will rise to a career-high ranking of 77. A wild card in Nottingham, the 26-year-old will not need one for Wimbledon.

“I’m feeling everything, probably more emotional than anything else,” said Boulter, who was born in Leicester and recalled in her winner’s speech how she used to train at the Nottingham Tennis Centre as a young girl. 

“I put my heart on the line this week. I’ve always dreamt of winning this tournament, so for me it was a dream come true. 

“My work is not done yet, I’ve got a lot more work to do. I’m really proud that I’ve had a great week, but I’m going to be back on the practice court very soon.”

While Boulter walks away with the spoils as only the second player in two decades to win a WTA title without facing a player ranked in the top 130, Burrage’s week has been barely less impressive. After seeing off the Czech Republic’s Tereza Martincova in a third set-set tiebreak in round one, the 24-year-old went on to beat a trio of players ranked in the top 100, including Magda Linette, the third seed, and former Australian Open quarter-finalist Alizé Cornet. 

“A bit gutted today,” said Burrage, the world No 131, in her on-court interview. “Tough, tough match that, Boults played absolutely incredibly, didn’t let me play at all, so credit to her. 

“But for me, this has been such a positive week. I’ve beaten some really good players this week, proved to myself a lot of things, so I’m only going to take the positives. 

“I’ll take positives from this, take confidence from it, and hopefully play some good tennis in the upcoming months.”

The first signs that a testing afternoon lay ahead for Burrage came as early as the opening game, where Boulter rifled a backhand return winner before sealing a break with a delicate half-volley.

Further woe followed for Burrage when she miscued an approach shot before double-faulting to hand Boulter a 4-1 lead. As Boulter backed up her heavy serve with fearless returning, Burrage struggled on her second serve, failing to win a point behind it in the first set.

“I just believe in myself and just keep swinging,” said Boulter. “I think the biggest thing for me was just to have a go and, even if I lose the match, then I’m still swinging, still going for it. That’s the player that I am, aggressive.”

It is a quality she showed in defeating former Wimbledon finalist Karolina Pliskova at the All England Club last summer, and Boulter maintained her front-foot approach in the second set, ending the afternoon with 21 winners, more than twice as many as Burrage.

At the Libéma Open in Rosmalen, defending champion Ekaterina Alexandrova prevailed 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) against top seed Veronika Kudermetova to win the longest women’s final of the year.

“After such a difficult match it’s such a pleasant feeling, I cannot even describe it,” said Alexandrova, who trailed a match of multiple rain delays by a set and a break before recovering to win in two hours and 52 minutes.

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Burrage, ranked 141st in the world, rushed to the aid of a stricken ballboy early in the second set of her match against Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine, tending to him at length as he sat in a chair at courtside.

The British No 5 was a set down and trailing 0-15 on serve when, realising something was wrong, she spoke to the boy briefly before running to her chair to get him a drink and a sachet of energy gel. Burrage then stayed with the boy for several minutes, encouraging him to drink and offering him Percy Pig sweets provided by a member of the crowd. 

“He just said he was feeling really faint. He couldn’t actually really talk. It was quite distressing to see,” said Burrage, who went on to lose 6-2, 6-3. 

“I just tried to get him some sugar, gave him a Gatorade and a gel. The gel is not the nicest thing, so they managed to find some Percy Pigs somewhere along the line in the crowd, which he got down and then started to feel better. Hopefully he’s feeling better now.  

“To be honest, it didn’t affect me too much, I guess. I actually came out, hit a great serve, probably the best serve I hit in that match after that. If anything, it helped me. But I just hope he’s OK.  

“I just reacted how I think anyone would. He was not in a good spot. I just tried to help him out as much as possible. I’ve fainted a few times. I actually had a panic attack once in juniors here, so I’ve been where he is. I kind of know a little bit how he was feeling. 

“I just tried to help as much as I could. Hopefully I did.”

In an individual sport where looking after number one tends to go with the territory, it was a heart-warming display of altruism from Burrage, who said the stop-start nature of a contest earlier halted by rain had been to her advantage.

“After the rain delay, I came out and played a lot better,” said Burrage. “Obviously I spoke to my coaches, they gave me some pointers. It let me reset. So I actually think it was to my advantage, those delays. But I still couldn’t put out the level of tennis I wanted to put on the court.”

It marked a disappointing conclusion to the grass-court season for Burrage, whose straight-sets victory over world No 4 Paula Badosa at Eastbourne was arguably the high-water mark of what has been a memorable grass-court swing so far for the British contingent. 

The ballboy, who was escorted off court, has reportedly made a full recovery.

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