Katie Boulter shows promise at Miami Open despite defeat

For the second year running, the Miami Open will not feature Andy Murray – the two-time champion here, who keeps a second home a couple of miles away on the shores of Biscayne Bay.

But the draw went ahead nevertheless with a surprisingly healthy British contingent of six, including defending champion Johanna Konta, of whom three had fought their way through qualifying. The most notable of these was perhaps Katie Boulter, the 21-year-old from Leicestershire, whose only previous appearance at the top tier came when she received a wild card into last year’s Wimbledon. 

Boulter had Jeremy Bates, himself an old Wimbledon hand, at courtside as she faced Hsieh Su-wei. Hsieh is an unusual player, primarily a doubles specialist, but capable enough to have taken the scalps of Konta at last year’s French Open and two-time slam champion Garbine Muguruza in Melbourne. Double-handed on both wings, she could almost be playing table-tennis as she deflects the ball with her wrists, relying on timing and placement because she is reed-thin and barely 5½ feet.

Boulter is also willowy and delicately built, but does have a loose-limbed swing that can drive the ball through the court. What she could not handle was the Hsieh drop shot, which confounded Konta at Roland Garros last year. Drop shots ended both sets in Boulter’s 6-4, 7-5 defeat. The opening set must have been particularly galling, given the ball clipped the net-cord, causing it to fall so gently to earth it could have had its own parachute.

Boulter will thus stand somewhere around the 190 mark when the next set of rankings are published in 10 days’ time. She is the British No 5 – with the top three being Konta, Heather Watson (who lost here in the first round on Tuesday) and Naomi Broady (who also lost on Monday, though her exit came in qualifying).

The No 4 position belongs to Gabriella Taylor, who entered the news cycle last summer when she contracted a rare bacterial disease named leptospirosis, and the suspicion emerged that she might have been poisoned by a rival. Five women in the top 200 and eight in the top 250: it might not sound like much, but it is the strongest representation Britain has had since the Eighties. 

With Taylor at 20, Boulter at 21 and Katie Swan – now just behind this group at No 307 in the world – about to turn 19 on Saturday, there is room for optimism about the next generation. But we should not get too over-excited: the 16-year-old American Amanda Anisimova showed what a phenomenon looks like by reaching the fourth round of Indian Wells 10 days ago, and beating former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova along the way.

Meanwhile, the newly branded Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s has announced the latest recruits to its entry list. Kyle Edmund, who became the British No 1 earlier this month, will try to improve his modest record on grass – a surface on which he has won only four ATP-level matches – while Spanish No 5 Feliciano Lopez ­returns to defend the title he won so unexpectedly last year.

Edmund is due to play here in Miami at the weekend, against either Nicolas Kicker or Frances ­Tiafoe. Uncharacteristically, he has also entered the doubles with the veteran Serbian campaigner Nenad Zimonjic, but then he has lacked match time since his superb run to the semi-finals of the Australian Open. He contracted a virus after that tournament that ruled him out of two clay-court events in South America, and lost his first match in Indian Wells.