Jelena Ostapenko briefly became a Wimbledon villain on day one of the Championships after clashing with the crowd during her first-round win over Harriet Dart.
British tennis fans flocked to Court One on Monday afternoon hoping to cheer on local favourite Dart in a rare Wimbledon win. However, the world number 151 lost the opening set 6-3 to former French Open champion Ostapenko. Dart did mount a stirring comeback in the second set, levelling the match to the delight of a largely partisan crowd on Court One.
The London-born 29-year-old also had some success in the third set, drawing raucous applause after breaking the Ostapenko serve after the Latvian threw in a poor double fault. Ostapenko sarcastically applauded the crowd as they cheered Dart's break of serve and raised her racket to acknowledge what she may have considered unfair treatment.
Wimbledon legend Navratilova criticized Ostapenko's reaction, saying the experienced star should have 'expected' the crowd to be in Dart's corner. 'Ostapenko is quite happy to pick a fight with this crowd,' a commentator said. 'She's taking on over 12,000 in here.'
Ostapenko regained her composure at the changeover and asserted her dominance when the match restarted, going on to win the deciding set 6-4. In her on-court interview, Ostapenko apologized to the crowd for getting 'a little bit emotional'.
'I'm probably not the one who you wanted to win, but thank you, it was a really nice atmosphere,' she said. Ostapenko also expressed her feelings about facing a local player, saying it made her feel 'angry in a good way' and motivated her to prove the crowd wrong.
Meanwhile, British tennis fans suffered another blow as Jack Draper withdrew from his first-round match due to a recurrence of his arm injury. Draper is coached by Sir Andy Murray and had been looking forward to playing in front of a home crowd. Former semi-finalist Cameron Norrie was also beaten in the first round by America's Michael Zheng in five sets.
