Katie Boulter: British No 1 on breakthrough year, boyfriend Alex de Minaur and Netflix spotlight

Katie Boulter is in the prime of her life. Heading into Great Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup play-off next month, she has just reached a career-high ranking and is brimming with confidence. But all of that comes with a strange sense of deja vu.

This was exactly the situation she was in ahead of the play-off Britain hosted on home soil in 2019, at London’s Copper Box Arena – the very venue they head to in a few weeks to play Sweden. And while she left that day as the golden girl of British tennis after her heroic efforts helped beat Kazakhstan and lift the team back into the top ranks of women’s tennis, it was also the win that undoubtedly stalled her career. “The memories are definitely bittersweet, it’s something that kept me up a lot of nights,” Boulter says.

The mixed feelings are understandable. In playing through injury that day against Zarina Diyas, Boulter aggravated a stress fracture in her back which sidelined her for six months, saw her slide out of the world’s top 100 and undid years of progress. She quite simply put her body on the line for her country, fighting for a result that ended up being void because of the competition’s restructuring the following year.

It was bleak timing too because, aged 23, she had been launching her long-awaited breakthrough, but it was also the making of her. “I definitely felt a lot of pain from that moment, but I also felt like we really accomplished something that day,” Boulter says. “Whether it was small or large in other people’s eyes, it was something huge for me. Delivering for your country really isn’t comparable to anything else. I truly cherish that moment with those girls. I still have many of those pictures up around my house and they’re the things that keep spurring me on. That feeling when we play matches like that is as good as it gets.

“Going back to the stadium, it’s going to bring back all the best memories more than anything else. I don’t see them as bad memories. I see them as learning blocks and I think it’ll show me how far I’ve come from that stage.”

She talks about it with Telegraph Sport mostly positively, almost breezily, which is admittedly easier to do now that she has finally superseded her achievements from 2019. This season has been her best yet: she won her first WTA title in Nottingham, then she reached the third round at Wimbledon and the US Open – both personal-best results – and finally broke into the top 50 for the first time in her career. Her 38 wins for the season so far (21 at tour level) is a career-best tally too, and the first time she has been able to compete for such a stretch without injury since 2018.

It means she goes into the BJK Cup play-off as the top-ranked player on either team, leading Jodie Burrage, Harriet Dart and Heather Watson for the Brits. A loss in qualifying to France earlier this year means the team is absent from the cup finals in Seville and must win the play-off against Sweden if they want to remain in the top tier of the competition next season.

Boulter says she is up for the challenge, and has a strong 9-3 win-loss record in the BJK Cup. “I feel like I’ve always been someone who’s enjoyed the big moments and I feel like it gets a lot of my best game out of me,” she says.

The personal milestones she has reached this season lived up to her own and others’ long-held expectations, considering her huge potential and significant investment put into her career by the Lawn Tennis Association from a young age. Boulter is a tall, powerful ball-striker, with all the weapons at her disposal to trouble top players. But that 2019 injury put the brakes on and it has taken four years to claw her way back.

Did she doubt it would ever happen? “Yes, 100 per cent,” she says. “That’s where huge credit goes to my team, my boyfriend [world No 13 Alex de Minaur], his team, my family. They’re the people that kind of kept me sane and kept reminding me that I am going to get my chance. I continued to plug through and I went through the tough times.”

Boulter is back in London after a solid few weeks in Asia, where she gave world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka a run for her money in China, losing 7-5, 7-6. She is ambitious, and earlier this year admitted she ultimately wants to be world No 1 and win a slam. But when you ask about her achievements, she is quick to credit those around her with her success. That includes her Serbian coach Biljana Veselinovic – one of a handful of female coaches on the professional circuit, with whom Boulter has been working with for two years.

“Aside from my mum, I’ve been coached by a male for the most part of my life,” Boulter says. “Just having a slightly different perspective with Biljana, she’s more like a motherly figure, she’s very comforting when you need her in the tough moments, but she’s a very strong woman and I respect her in so many different ways. She’s slightly different to a lot of what I’ve seen before and I don’t know if it’s because she’s a female or if it’s because she just has a different coaching style. But it’s really nice to see women out there coaching, it’s something that I’m a huge advocate for. It really does make a difference, sometimes I think they understand you a little bit better and can help you in different ways.”

That includes helping Boulter with her new life experiences since becoming British No 1 for the first time this year. During Wimbledon she was on the cover of Tatler, the front pages of every national newspaper and her relationship with Australian No 1 De Minaur meant they were heralded as tennis’s couple of the moment. Not that Boulter is prone to leaning into the attention much. She is just as likely to be found posting on social media about walks with her elderly grandfather as fancy parties or invitations.

“I’m not hugely into that side of things, though I appreciate the attention at times,” Boulter says. “I am proud of the way that I have handled it this year and it’s definitely been a little bit different. I learnt a lot from Alex; he’s been in the spotlight for many, many years from a young age, as an Aussie in Australia. The way that he handles it and the way that he’s so humble is something that I really try to be like. There aren’t many people like that and it’s one of the biggest things I admire about him.”

Their relationship – both on the doubles court at SW19 and off it – gained them many new fans over the summer. If Netflix’s Break Point documentary came calling, would she be up for cameras following their every move?

She laughs. “I’m not really sure. It would be interesting, for sure. I think it’s something that can be an incredible tool to grow the sport and if you can be a part of it, I think that would be pretty cool. But at the same time, I am quite a private person. So it’s whether someone like myself would be able to open up and fully commit to it. But I haven’t had that thought cross my mind yet.”