Broom full of confidence as Wimbledon Qualifying gets underway

Charles Broom fears no one at Wimbledon Qualifying after reaching the second round of the draw in Roehampton following a thrilling victory on Monday.

St Albans player Broom shocked the more experienced Alessandro Giannessi 6-4 6-7(4) 6-3 to progress to the second round of qualifying in Roehampton, where he will face Dennis Novak.

Monday’s victory was one of the best of the 25-year-old’s career, and unsurprisingly he was feeling full of confidence after coming through a high-quality contest.

“I’m so happy,” he said.

“Even towards the end of the second set, where it was going close, I felt I was still playing within my level a little bit. I had a couple of gears to go and I managed to find them at the end.

“I’m feeling really good. I’ve played a lot of matches on grass now and feel really comfortable out there. I love playing in front of the crowd.

“It doesn’t matter what court I’m going to be on. I’m going to be prepared, I’m going to be ready and I’m looking forward to Wednesday.

“There’s no one here who scares me but everyone is a fantastic player, so I’ve just got to go out and try and compete as well as I can, give it my all and go through it again.”

After taking a set and a break lead, Broom was pulled back by Giannessi, who produced some stunning points in the second set tiebreak to force the decider.

But Broom held his nerve at the start of the third set, and from 3-3 dropped just a handful of points to storm to victory.

He added: “I took a break at the end of the second set to evaluate everything. I knew I wasn’t quite playing my best, on serve in particular, but I felt I was right there all the way through.

“I was up a break and put him under a lot of pressure, so I didn't feel by any means the match was getting away from me.

“My coach said something to me about getting up and hitting my serve. I started doing that and it just completely flipped. When you’re playing on grass and you start to feel good on serve, you’re making high percentages and putting them under pressure, it transforms your game a little bit.

“That happened from 3-3 but even when I was playing the first set and I was quite serving as well, I knew my ground game was there so I was just trying to stay patient, find my serve and I did it in the end and played really well.

“I think it was 11 of the last 12 points that I won. I found my serve, found my rhythm and took off from there.”

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