It was a weekend to remember for tennis couple Katie Boulter and Alex de Minaur as they both won major titles and Boulter expressed “a small special thank you” to De Minaur after her San Diego success.
The title celebrations started on Saturday evening for the pair as De Minaur won his eighth ATP Tour singles trophy after he successfully defended his Mexican Open crown with a straight-set defeat of Casper Ruud in the Acapulco final.
There was no time to party afterwards for the Australian as he told reporters: “You know what I cannot [stick around for the big party] because I’ve got a 6am flight to go to watch Katie play in the final. I’m looking forward to that.”
And he stuck to his word as he flew to Southern California to watch Boulter compete for her maiden WTA 500 trophy against Marta Kostyuk.
After sixth seed Kostyuk won the opening set, the British No 1 dominated the final two sets to come away with the 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 victory for the biggest title of her career.
During the post-match interviews, Boulter decided to “embarrass” her De Minaur.
“I want to say a small special thank you to my boyfriend,” she started off. “He finished last night at midnight and – I really want to embarrass him – so he got on a 4:15 taxi this morning and a 6am flight to be here today so I do appreciate that.”
Weekend rundown 😅
– win Acapulco title on Saturday 🏆
– fly to San Diego ✈️
– watch Katie win title on Sunday 🏆@alexdeminaur x @katiecboulter pic.twitter.com/NrPFXhvKXB— wta (@WTA) March 4, 2024
As for her own heroics, it is Boulter’s second WTA title after her maiden trophy at the WTA 250 Nottingham Open in June last year. The win has seen her rise to a career-high No 27 in the WTA Rankings.
It will take a while for it all to sink in.
“I don’t know what just happened,” Boulter said. “This week has been very, very special for so many different reasons. This one is pretty amazing, I’ve worked very hard for it, I played some incredible tennis all week.
“Today was a complete battle, with myself as well, because I was a little bit nervous. But I managed to get over the line, and that I’m very proud of.
“A lot of it was about me staying as tough as I possibly could mentally, and I managed to keep my cool and actually kind of went within myself and calmed myself down a lot. I think that really helped me, and then I started to relax and play through shots a little bit more.”
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