French Open champion Garbine Muguruza reckoned she had been running on empty as she became the first major contender to exit either Wimbledon singles.
The 22-year-old, who made her big breakthrough in this tournament last year when she reached the final, departed tamely, losing in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2, to Slovakian Jana Cepelova who is a few months her senior but was not expected to offer much threat to the Spaniard.
Having also struggled in her opening match, needing three sets to see off Italian Camila Giorgi, Muguruza admitted, however, that she was struggling from the outset in their second round tie.
“I think my energy was missing a little bit today,” she said.
“Today during the match and after the match it’s like a tough day today. I feel empty a little bit and I started to feel sick, but I think it was a little bit of a combination and I think she played great, with no fear.”
Muguruza denied that the expectation of coming into the tournament as second seed, on the back of her defeat of Serena Williams in the final of the French Open to claim her first Grand Slam title last month, had weighed too heavily on her.
However she reckoned that she has to absorb the lesson that she must work out better how to prepare better between major tournaments.
“You really need to concentrate on how to recover and don’t reach a moment where your energy is too low, especially to play a Grand Slam and to face opponents that, hey, they’re good, they’re here, they want to beat you so much,” she observed.
“I’m just experiencing a lot of things so fast. It’s my first time after having a great result, coming to another Grand Slam, so I’m trying to discover how I’m going to feel… how I have to rest more.
“I think it’s great, now I’m understanding more about these great players, that they’re amazing winning a lot of Grand Slams. But hey, that’s what it takes, so I’ve got to be ready.”
Wildcard Tara Moore was meanwhile left to maintain home interest in the women’s singles as compatriots Jo Konta and Heather Watson both suffered painful defeats, albeit they reacted in starkly contrasting fashion.
On the face of it Konta’s was the more devastating loss since this year’s Australian Open semi-finalist failed to live up to her 16th seeding in losing to an unseeded opponent.
However she had come up against one of the most dangerous floaters in the draw, 2014 finalist Eugenie Bouchard having fallen a long way down the rankings over the past year as a result of an initial loss of form followed by a freak injury suffered when she slipped and fell in the locker room during last year’s US Open.
The Canadian took the first set 6-3 and while the momentum seemed to have shifted as Konta roared through the second 6-1 that scoreline was reversed in the decider.
Very much into the power of positive thinking, however, Konta was clearly determined to remain upbeat.
“I really enjoyed it. I think I've got a lot of good things to take away from that match and a lot of things I hope to implement in my development as a tennis player and as a person,” she enthused.
“You know, I definitely would have liked to have stayed longer in the singles event here, but I'm very happy with the experience I was able to have today.
“I went in with no real expectations of an outcome. I definitely expected her to play well. Although her ranking may have gone down over the past year, her level of tennis never went away. She is an incredibly good player with a lot of experience, in the short career she's had.
“I was expecting a tough match, and that's what it was. It was a shame I couldn't come through it. Again, I'm very, very pleased with the competition that we both got to play.”
Watson took a very different line, however, as she lashed herself after failing to capitalise on having won the first set of a match spread over three days because of rain delays, losing the second 6-0 and then spurning a string of match points in the last in going down 12-10.
“I didn’t get beat today, I made the errors,” she said.
“I didn’t have winners flying past me, I wasn’t outplayed, I let her back into the match.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here