Not much for home crowd to whoop over as last of Britain's singles hopes exits

When this quarter-final was definitively wrapped up after only one hour and 39 minutes, the noise on Centre Court was a subdued mixture of applause and the odd whoop.

- Paul MacInnes

The applause was polite, acknowledging a sporting contest had taken place, even if it had not been competitive.

The whoops were a little performative. Britain's last remaining singles hope at these Championships, Cameron Norrie, had been outclassed by a purring Carlos Alcaraz 6-2, 6-3, 6-3.

Alcaraz, the reigning men's champion, had whipped through the match, whipped forehand winner after forehand winner, and whipped his opponent into meek submission.

It had been so tough a struggle for Norrie that he had felt the need to fist-pump simply for holding points on his serve. This is where the whoops came in; the crowd's own attempt to find encouragement where it could.

Quarter-finals with a British interest are far from a given at Wimbledon. The decade between 2008 and 2017, when Andy Murray never went home before the final eight, is a glaring anomaly in the men's game.

Equally exceptional were the successes of Virginia Wade in the 1970s. This was only the fifth quarter-final to feature a home competitor in the past decade and the unspectacular Norrie, born in South Africa and raised in New Zealand, is not someone who can easily be described as a fan favourite.

So it was a big match, but not as big as it could have been and this perhaps was reflected around the showpiece court.