The relationship between player and crowd at Wimbledon tends to be pegged out around great matches, an accumulated muscle memory of successive oddly intimate moments of extreme competition down the years. Johanna Konta’s gripping quarter-final defeat of Simona Halep looks like being the latest example of this process in action.
Both women played to the outer reaches of their capacity over three high-grade sets. Centre Court quivered and moaned in the way no other sporting crowd ever really quivers and moans. In victory Konta threw another grappling hook across the divide from late-blooming high-class hopeful to slams contender. Plus she added another layer to her own note of fond, purring rapport with a home crowd that for all its squealing gaucheness does tend to remember.
Related: Wimbledon and Britain embrace new heroine as Konta shines again
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