Mimi Xu was left beaming after she started her latest Junior Wimbledon campaign with victory.
Bridgend’s Xu, who trains at the LTA’s National Academy in Loughborough, reached the third round of the competition last year and was drawn against Romania’s Cara Maria Meșter in the opening round this time around.
It was a hard-fought contest between the two, but the 15-year-old Brit was eventually able to come out in straight sets, prevailing 7-6(8) 6-4 to set up a meeting against sixth seed Kaitlin Quevedo.
“I feel real happy about it – this is probably the happiest I’ve felt after winning a match at Wimbledon, to be honest. Overall I’m really pleased and excited for my next match,” she said.
“I feel like first round matches are always a bit more nervy than all the rest, but I’m just happy to get through.”
Xu had plenty of crowd support at the All England Club, in a match that ebbed and flowed, but ultimately saw her win most of the key exchanges.
And there was a particular passage at the end of the first set and the start of the second that she believed to be key.
She added: “At the start of the tiebreak I went 5-0 love up, and obviously just had that dip, I went 6-3 and then 6-6, but obviously going 5-0 up really helped me. Having that early break in the second set as well. I managed to break early and then keep holding serve.
“I feel like I always knew I was able to serve it out, with the way I was serving. I had that confidence in myself, and after the match I went to my towel and my coach told me I’d smiled three times in a row.
“I just really enjoyed the atmosphere when I was serving for it, I was just really relaxed actually.”
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