Meanwhile, Lily Miyazaki narrowly missed out on booking a second-round meeting with Raducanu. She looked almost incredulously towards her box after sealing the second of them. Umpire Kader Nouri had to remind them of their responsibilities to remain quiet during the point in the second set, but the excitement approached fever pitch when, after exactly 100 minutes, Raducanu brought up three match points. Raducanu though did manage to save two break points at 5-4 and serve out the first set to the delight of a crowd that grew fuller as the match went on, and more involved too.

With two fairly hefty serves on show, this should not have been a match in which breaks were so regular, but the lack of fluency on both sides of the net made it hard for either player to get much of a run going. She could not consolidate though, and was broken herself, before retaliating for the third break in a row. Unforced errors more than winners defined the scoreline too and so it was appropriate that while a fine backhand return earned her 15-40, it was Raducanu’s opponent missing her second serve that elicited the break. More than 15 minutes had passed by the time both women had a game on the board, Van Uytvanck saving two break points in her first service game and Raducanu saving three. Remarkably, Raducanu had never played on Centre Court despite having already won her first major, and while it was not necessarily a nervy start, it was certainly not a clean one.

Wimbledon tennis live scores