Wimbledon: Edmund exits after letting two-set lead slip

He likes to keep his head down and not only that, cover it with a big-brimmed hat so the Centre Court yesterday couldn’t see what he was thinking. Was he happy or sad? Relaxed or tense? Would he be exactly like this if told he’d won the Lottery or his house was on fire and the budgie hadn’t been accounted for?

We don’t even know if he has a budgie, for Edmund doesn’t let his personality spill out all over the place. He’s not Nick Kyrgios by any stretch but then Wimbledon only has room for one of them.

There must have been tension – simply had to be. Edmund was two sets to the good and needed one solid hit to lead 4-1 in the third. In effect, he was nine points away from a place in the third round. But the hit never came. Would the hysterics come as his game then disintegrated and he eventually lost 4-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-3, 6-4? No, that’s not Edmund, not even in dire circumstances such as these on Centre Court, even though the crowd, and even its most prim members, would have surely excused one great spitting roar of frustration – and a tossed sweatband for good measure.

Oh how matches can turn. Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, at 35, was giving Edmund 11 years and early on it showed. Not that the Brit was running him off the court or anything, simply that he was in control of his game (and, of course, his emotions) whereas Verdasco was totally relying on his forehand, scampering round his backhand ridiculously, and the veteran’s fate seemed sealed.

The crowd were enjoying their man being in the ascendancy. One over-refreshed fellow rubbed it in by warbling a few lines from Abba: Can you hear the drums, Fernando? Did Edmund smile at this, even just a little? No one could be sure.

There was the polite but decisive way Edmund collects his towel from the ballpersons – it wasn’t much of an insight into the man’s soul but it was something. And then, sensationally, there was a raised fist. Then another, raised slightly higher. Edmund was celebrating some rasping winners and the crowd gasped in relief more than anything. Then, homing in on the opening set, he concluded another winner by combining the fist with a modest leap. A Union Jack was waved in the front row. “Come on!” hollered Edmund. We wondered if the exhortation was going to be completed thus: “Let’s all have an orgy!” But, no. This was only the first set, after all.

This wasn’t fantastic shot-making from Edmund and nor was it a faultless display. When he missed a volley there would be the merest suggestion of a rueful stare, or perhaps the hint of a groan, but it’s highly unlikely these would have been picked up by Hawkeye. The chinks in Edmund’s game would have given heart to Verdasco, a wily campaigner playing his 17th Wimbledon.

Rallies were few and far between. A pity, because when an exchange did develop it was often a good one. The crowd waited patiently for developments, and then when Verdasco fired a ball well beyond the baseline and it was caught by Edmund, Centre Court exploded. “Who was this complete prankster?” the stands must have thought. Or: who was this expert fielder? Send him over to Chester-le-Street and the Cricket World Cup.

In football, a team are at their most vulnerable right after scoring, and straight away in the second set Edmund was broken. The winning point in this set was a shanked shot from Edmund which turned into a brilliant lob, the man from Madrid glowering back at its weird trajectory as he stomped to his chair in need of first the trainer and then a change in the breeze.

Then came the turnaround, Edmund passing up his great chance. John McEnroe on TV declared: “He blew it.” Did the player agree? “For sure there will be a lot of people saying that.” Around this key time Edmund slipped and summoned the trainer, but he didn’t blame this mishap for his defeat. “It didn’t hold me back at all,” he said.

Verdasco, who’d been flagging earlier, was suddenly moving perkily on those chunky veteran’s legs while Edmund seemed to have had the energy drained from his as he attempted shots from a static position, flopping the simplest of returns into the net, booming them out of play the next. The game had really flipped because Verdasco’s was winning decisive points on his backhand, hitherto invisible, and the lumpiness of Edmund’s performance in the latter stages was almost painful to watch.

“I physically was not able to keep going,” he admitted. “I need to improve for next time I step on court. Being able to play three and a half, four hours, you need to put the work in.”

Well, at least he didn’t keep everything under his hat.