The British No3 Kyle Edmund failed to match his compatriot Liam Broady’s feat in reaching the second round, fading after a promising start to lose in straight sets to the Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov.
A downcast Edmund faded badly after a tight opening set that Dolgopolov, who beat Rafael Nadal in the first round at Queen’s in the runup to Wimbledon, eventually took on a tie-break.
The match slipped away from the 20-year-old thereafter, with his more experienced opponent winning 7-6 , 6-1, 6-2 in less than two hours.
The pair traded early breaks of serve in a tight first set under cloudless skies, with Edmund matching the former world No13 blow for blow and refusing to be fazed by Dolgopolov’s ability to mix up his shots.
Edmund was right in the match at 4-2 up in the first-set tie-break, having played a flashing backhand down the line to go a mini-break up.
But the Ukrainian pumped an ace past his opponent at 126mph and surged back to win the tie break 7-4. After that the belief seemed to drain from Edmund, who has gone from 196 in the world to 101 in the last 12 months. If he had sealed a maiden win at Wimbledon it would have been the first time there had been three homegrown male players in the world top 100 for almost a decade.
At 3-0 down in the second set, and with Dolgopolov threatening to run away with the match, Edmund called for the trainer for treatment on his shoulder, a complaint that may have been aggravated by the knock-on effect of a stomach injury suffered at Roland Garros last month. He was forced out of the French Open before his second-round match against Nick Kyrgios, following a hugely encouraging opening-round win – his first in a grand slam – against the Frenchman Stéphane Robert.
Edmund, who has been talked up as one of a batch of promising British youngsters since he reached the semi-finals of Junior Wimbledon in 2013, plainly struggled after that treatment to his shoulder.
Confidence surged through the Ukrainian and he began displaying his full range of shots. Edmund, attempting to win his first match in the senior singles draw at his third attempt, appeared unable to serve at full strength following his treatment break and the match ran away from him.
In the third set, Edmund saved an early break point by driving a backhand into Dolgopolov’s feet as the Ukrainian made his way to the net. In the fifth game of the set, he saved two more.
But Dolgopolov was relentless on No3 Court and, when Edmund completely mistimed a smash to give the Ukrainian a 3-2 lead, it was emblematic of a performance that had started well but gone quickly downhill from there.
Dolgopolov’s best grand slam performance came in 2011 when he reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open before losing to Andy Murray.
The 26-year-old from Kiev has the talent to climb much higher in the rankings than his current position of 70 suggests, visibly growing in confidence as the match wore on, and will provide a stern test for his second-round opponent.
