From Leicester to London: Alex De Minaur’s Gilfriend Katie Boulter has been building to this Wimbledon her whole life

PARIS—Leicester may best be known for its football club (and we’ll get to the Foxes in a bit), but the outskirts of this ancient city in the East Midlands have their own defining qualities.

“A lot of the greenery, a lot of the peacefulness when you wake up in the morning, the birds,” explains Katie Boulter, the Leicester-born 27-year-old. “I don’t think there’s many places in London where you get to hear that.”

One such place in the capital may be in the southwest, in its 19^th postal district. This town is rich with verdant lawns, quaint traditions—and birds, too. Just ask Rufus the Hawk, employed there for a few weeks each summer to scare them away. Boulter’s idyllic description sounds very much like…Wimbledon, does it not?

Boulter is intimately familiar with both places, and that’s just one reason why she could soon make the All England Club a veritable home away from home. Not every top pro can handle what comes with Wimbledon, but for Boulter, it’s a tournament she’s been preparing for her entire life.

Growing up, Boulter learned the sport from her mother, a tennis coach at Leicestershire Lawn Tennis Club. She vividly remembers playing on its grass courts, an experience only a scant percentage of young players can relate to.

“You’ve got to maintain them—it’s not easy,” Boulter says of the uncommon playing surface. “To have the privilege of having a couple [grass] courts, I thought that was amazing.”

Sitting down for a chat in the media center at Roland Garros, she then immediately recalled another formative memory.

“I remember, every single year, the club championships, which were always massive. Everyone would get together and just compete. I love the environment of that, and I think it’s something that really got me into tennis.”

Boulter was a quick study, reaching an Orange Bowl final at 14 and playing her first professional tournaments a year later. In October 2018, she cracked the WTA Top 100 for the first time.

But a spinal stress fracture, suffered while playing Fed Cup for Great Britain in April 2019, halted her upward momentum. She was sidelined until November, then played just three main-draw, tour-level matches in 2020, due to measured recovery and, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Personally I was pretty sad because I felt like I had finally got my game to a really good place and I was ready to compete,” Boulter told journalists that fateful year, in a Zoom-mandated press gathering.

In addition to effectively being taken of the court, the inability to visit her grandfather and loved ones during the lockdown added to Boulter’s struggles.

“I spent a lot of my childhood walking in the forest with my family—that was something we would do every weekend,” Boulter says. “For me it was quite therapeutic.”

Boulter finished the 2020 season ranked No. 365—just three ranking spots higher than where she finished four years earlier. It was a full-circle moment that no player with Boulter’s aspirations and talent wants to experience.

We’re known for being competitive fighters, and I definitely feel like I emulate that. Katie Boulter

Ever since, Boulter hasn’t finished a season lower than where she started. From No. 148 in 2021 to No. 124 in 2022 all the way to No. 58 in 2023, a healthier and happier Boulter has become the clear-cut British women’s No. 1. She capped her ascendance into the Top 100 with her first tour-level title—on grass, naturally, in Nottingham.

Boulter ascribes her ability to bounce back to another part of her upbringing: the Leicester City Football Club.

“I see myself as a Fox,” Boulter says earnestly, referring to the club’s moniker. “They’re fighters, they keep on going.

“I think I’ve been through a lot of adversity on and off the court, and them on the pitch as well.”