MX23RW : Tuesday, March 19 05:15:45| >> :600:161252987:161252987:

Katie Boulter loving life representing Great Britain in the Fed Cup

Katie Boulter loving life representing Great Britain in the Fed Cup
© Reuters
The 22-year-old has won both games in bath.

Katie Boulter is getting the taste of delivering huge wins for Great Britain in the Fed Cup after she got their tie with Greece off to the perfect start, though it came in controversial circumstances.

Having won her first singles match in the victorious tie over Slovenia on Wednesday, she again opened up with a win, beating Valentini Grammatikopoulou 6-3 4-6 6-3.

But the Greek and her captain Anastasios Bavelas surrounded umpire Evelina Oehme three times in the final set, with the pair unhappy at several line calls.

Grammatikopoulou later called Oehme "not so good" and said she would have preferred to lose nice.

Boulter was able to stay calm, undeterred by what was happening at the other side of the net and saw out a tough encounter to send her country 1-0 up.

"This whole entire year, this career we choose, everything is not going to be perfect and my mentality is to go out and fight no matter what happens whether you play well or whether you play badly," she said.

"I think that is one of the keys of tennis and it is what I pride myself on. Every single match that I play is tough, I know that going into every match I play.

"It is important that I keep my head straight no matter what and I keep calm and I did really well out there and I am proud of that."

This was a far more testing battle than her 62-minute win over Kaja Juvan on Wednesday as Grammatikopoulou played well above her ranking of 171.

But the 22-year-old dug deep and showed great spirit, particularly in the deciding third set when she overcame a break and then had to save three more break points.

Grammatikopoulou and Bavelas then spent several minutes at various times complaining about some of the line decisions.

There is no Hawkeye in action at the University of Bath, so Grammatikopoulou had no option but to accept the calls, though expressed her dissatisfaction at Oehme's umpiring.

"This umpire was not so good so I'm really disappointed in that in Fed Cup," she said. "Three calls were in deuce and everybody... you can watch it actually and I will show her the balls were out. It's really unfair to play like this.

"It's nice to play against countries and she deserved to win but let's play fair. That's why we play tennis, you know? Not to judge the lines. It's really tough.

"We played in Britain against the country but I respect the player and it's not about how she played it's about fair play. If the ball was out I accept. If the ball was in I accept. But not if it's really clear out.

"It doesn't matter anymore but if I want to lose, I want to lose nice. Now it doesn't matter anymore.

Katie Boulter has won both her Fed Cup games in Bath
Katie Boulter has won both her Fed Cup games in Bath (David Davies/PA)

"As you know Hawkeye is from Britain so we were a little bit surprised that they didn't put it here because the thing was made in this country so it would be nice to have it for the next time."

Boulter also had cause for complain at some of the umpiring as Oehme overruled an out call that would have given the Brit two break points when her opponent was serving for the second set.

She said: "There were a couple of bad calls here or there, whether they were good or bad I don't know.

"There was a let that I thought wasn't called, it goes both ways."

ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Jonathan Veal, Press Association Sport');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', 'a83d9bd9-eecc-481c-814c-5a1000bb2575');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:uk,paservice:sport:world');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:tennis');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Katie Boulter loving life representing Great Britain in the Fed Cup'});

ID:349641: cacheID:349641:1false2false3false:QQ:: from db desktop :LenBod:restore:15447:
Restore Data
Share this article now:
Kiki Bertens pictured on February 2, 2019
Read Next:
Bertens and Vekic will battle for St Petersburg crown
>
Read more about Katie Boulter Tennis