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Katie Boulter is out

The British star admitted she suffered from nerves in her first Grand Slam match for a year as she made 18 unforced errors in the first set on her way to losing 6-1 6-4 to world No.75 Daria Kasatkina.

The Leicester City fan, down to world No.371, is playing on a protected ranking but her playing time was limited by a back injury and the pandemic. She showed promising form by beating Coco Gauff in a warm-up event last week but could not perform on the bigger stage.

Boulter said: “I’m pretty disappointed with today. I felt like I never really got going, I felt quite uncomfortable out on the court.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself when really there was absolutely no need to. of course it’s a bigger tournament I’m going to feel a little bit added extra pressure. There’s bigger things at stake.

“I’m obviously going into it playing well and feeling good, so, yeah, I expect a lot of myself. There’s different times of pressure and unfortunately, I didn’t handle it as well as I would like to today.”