Britain's day in the sun

Wimbledon is just not used to this kind of thing.

- Simon Cambers

On the hottest ever opening day of the championships, with the temperature reaching 32.3C, British players sizzled with a record seven players recording victories, the highest number on any day in the Open era, beating the previous record of six achieved on day two in 2022.

Sonay Kartal got the ball rolling with a brilliant 7-5, 2-6, 6-2 win over the former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko and more than seven hours later, Katie Boulter set the new mark with an equally impressive 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 win over the former world No 2 Paula Badosa.

With 23 players across the two singles events, the most since 1984, there was plenty of hope, if not total expectation, that several of them could progress to round two. Emma Raducanu and Cameron Norrie were always favoured to advance, and did, but Kartal, Billy Harris, Arthur Fery and Oliver Tarvet all beat much higher-ranked opponents to break the record.

This time last year, the 23-year-old Kartal was ranked No 298, battling just to make it as a professional. Yesterday, after a whirlwind 12 months, she gave British players the perfect start with an outstanding win over 20th seed Ostapenko. "I was happy to be first up," world No 51 Kartal said. "You know when you're going to be on. I hope that maybe it can give the other guys a bit of extra motivation, if they need it."