Boulter shows fighting spirit to claim one of her best wins over ninth seed

At the start of a tension-filled final set on Centre Court, when she desperately needed to showcase the best of her abilities, Katie Boulter's game was in freefall.

- Tumaini Carayol

Her rapid-fire start had given way to painful service issues and her unforced error count was growing with every point.

The 28-year-old Briton responded to those difficulties, however, with a demonstration of her resilience, digging deep at the end of three testing sets to produce one of the best wins of her career by toppling the ninth seed Paula Badosa to reach the second round of Wimbledon with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 victory.

The win marks the fourth top-10 victory of Boulter's career and her second at a grand slam tournament following her dramatic three-set win against the No 7 Karolina Pliskova on the same court in 2022.

"I think I got one of my first [top 10 wins] against Pliskova on this court," Boulter said. "The moment I stepped out here, it just reminded me of that from the first ball. I feel I have some really good juju. I played some really good stuff so I'm happy to be through to the next round."