Jonny O’Mara battled through the pain of Andy Murray’s defeat to book his place in the second round of the mixed doubles at Wimbledon.
The Scot, 28, joined forces with fellow Brit Olivia Nicholls to complete a brilliant comeback victory against Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Kirsten Flipkens.
O’Mara was on Centre Court to watch the majority of good friend Murray’s devastating five-set defeat against Stefanos Tsitsipas while Nicholls, also 28, lost her own women’s doubles match alongside compatriot Alicia Barnett earlier in the day.
The world No.128 admits both players were down after their respective disappointments but loved turning the tables to keep their SW19 hopes alive.
O’Mara, who reached the third round of the men’s doubles alongside Ken Skupski last year, said: “It was good fun – we got off to a bit of a shaky start and Liv had a bit of a tough result earlier in the day so was a little bit down.
“I was a little bit down with Andy’s defeat, so it was a difficult start.
“I was on Centre watching Andy and had to leave halfway through the fifth to get ready to play.
“It wasn’t ideal preparation – it would have been ideal if it’s won and I would have been absolutely buzzing to get out on the court, but it was good to still get the win.”
Harriet Dart and Heather Watson pulled off a long-awaited revenge mission by claiming a significant scalp in the women’s doubles.
The dynamic, youth and experienced-fuelled duo stunned seventh seeds Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jeļena Ostapenko 6-4 3-6 6-4 on a packed-out Court 4 after holding their nerve in the decider to grab a crucial break of serve.
Dart, 26, and experienced Watson, 31, were beaten by Ukrainian Kichenok and Latvian Ostapenko in the third round at the All England Club last year – and at Eastbourne under two weeks earlier.
Watson said: “We’ve played those girls a fair few times – they’ve had the better of us in the third set here last year and at Eastbourne last year.
“It was such a good win today after getting one of the hardest draws we could have – to get through will give us a lot of confidence.
Dart added: “At one moment I was thinking ‘they can’t get us again’.
“We always have really tough matches with them and going into it we knew it was going to be very challenging.”
Elsewhere, Lloyd Glasspool progressed alongside popular French veteran Nicolas Mahut in the men’s doubles, but there were shocks as Neal Skupski and Joe Salisbury both exited in the mixed and men’s competitions respectively.
British women’s singles No.1 Katie Boulter progressed in the mixed alongside Australian boyfriend Alex de Minaur, Skupski won his men’s match with Wesley Koolhof while elsewhere, Glasspool and British women’s No.2 Jodie Burrage were unable to advance in the mixed event.
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