The expectation of being a British player at Wimbledon can both inspire and destroy. How else to account for what happened to Katie Boulter, who on Monday evening, after beating Paula Badosa, the ninth seed, was exultant. She had played a bold, big-hitting game in extreme heat and spoke afterwards of feeling like a “little girl” again so thrilled was she to be on Centre Court in front of spectators who had delighted in her every winning shot. “This court is the epitome of what every single British child dreams about playing on and winning on. It’s a dream come true every time I step out here.”

Two days later, on No 1 Court, Boulter played a jittery first set and then was routed in the next two by Solana Sierra, who had scraped into the main draw as a lucky loser. The mood inside No 1 Court was as subdued as Boulter’s game. She had lost in the second-round last year to her longtime English rival Harriet Dart, also on court one, but this defeat seemed even more painful after the optimism that had greeted her initial victory.

Had she choked? Her serve had certainly misfired. “Unfortunately, it’s just the way it is,” Boulter said afterwards, her words an unconscious echo of the sombre Bruce Hornby song about defeat and resignation.

When a British player loses at Wimbledon – especially one as likeable and committed as Boulter – there is a kind of collective sigh of deflation on the hill. There massed ranks of spectators gather to eat and drink and watch, on big screens, the matches on the show courts.

On Wednesday evening the disappointment that followed Boulter’s unexpected defeat didn’t last long because soon afterwards, on Centre Court, Emma Raducanu, hitting forcefully off both wings, comprehensively beat Marketa Vondrousova, the 2023 Wimbledon champion. “There was one moment in the second set where I looked up, and I was like, Oh, my God, how am I meant to hit the ball right now?” Raducanu said. “I’m on Centre Court playing…. It’s pretty special when you take a moment to soak it all up what you’re actually doing out there.”

Her reward was to return to Centre Court for an enthralling third-round contest late on Friday evening against the world number one Aryna Sabalenka. Raducanu lost but delivered her most complete performance on grass and perhaps her best tennis since her improbable US Open triumph in 2021, where she never faced anyone as good as Sabalenka.

This year’s great British hope was Jack Draper, of course, US Open semi-finalist, Indian Wells champion, seeded four, and one of the game’s fastest-rising power baseliners who plays, as Rafael Nadal did, with his non-dominant hand. His double-handled backhand is hit, therefore, in effect like another forehead, and under the guidance of coach James Trotman his movement, touch, willingness to come into the net and stamina have greatly improved since his struggles on clay last season.

At Queen’s Club, where he lost in the semi-final, Draper was bizarrely asked in a post-match interview whether the hill at Wimbledon, popularly known as “Henman Hill” (though it has also been called “Murray Mound”), should be renamed in his honour, a strange question to ask a player who had never progressed beyond the second round at SW19.

The exchange that followed could have been extracted from a Harold Pinter play.

“[What about calling it] Draper’s Drop?”

“Draper’s what?” he said.

“Draper’s Drop.”

“Job?”

“Drop, yeah.”

“Draper’s Drop!?” he said.

“Yeah, why not.”

“It’s not that steep, is it?”

Draper is a personable young fellow, and patient with media questions, but he must have sensed that this was a whole new level of sporting absurdity. More would follow at Wimbledon such was the hype building around him.

On Tuesday evening, after beating Sebastian Baez in the first round, Draper was asked by the BBC’s Rishi Prasad how he felt about the pressure of home expectation. This time, he showed a flash of irritation: “I don’t think about it until people just mention it every five minutes.”

Two days later, Draper was out, beaten by 36-year-old Marin Cilic, a finalist in 2017 and, despite gruelling struggles with injury, still a dangerous opponent on grass. One can only imagine the collective sigh on the hill as Draper departed, chastened but also wiser about what it takes for a British player to thrive at Wimbledon. “It makes me think that Andy’s achievement, winning here twice, is just unbelievable,” he said as he departed, grumbling about the accuracy of the automated line calls. Later, he said: “I think there’s a bit of a misconception like, just because I’m a six-foot-four lefty, I must be incredible on grass.”

The yearning for home success during the Wimbledon fortnight - the one time in the sporting year when tennis moves from the margins to command national attention - is so powerful that even first round victories can turn wild cards and qualifiers, such as Jack Pinnington Jones and Oliver Tarvet, into minor celebrities: cheered, applauded, then swiftly forgotten. Until next year, if they return.

Andrew Castle, a veteran BBC commentator, is remembered as a player principally for only one game: a five-set loss in the second round at Wimbledon to Mats Wilander, the second seed who had won four grand slam singles titles (he ended up winning seven in a storied career). That was in 1986, before the era of Tim Henman and “Henmania”, when even a plucky second round defeat like Castle’s was received with a kind of rapture. After that game, Castle, who had played as a student on the American college circuit, was the coming man of British tennis – until he wasn’t.

The opening day of the tournament, in which seven British players made it through to the second round (they were followed by three more on Tuesday), particularly excited Clare Balding, anchor of the BBC’s saturation coverage. “Can I share a secret with you,” she whispered conspiratorially to John McEnroe live on-air. “This is the single most successful day for British tennis at Wimbledon.”

“Really,” the usually garrulous American champion replied. His tone and puzzled expression revealed his true thoughts: ‘Come on, it’s only round one!’

By the end of the week, there were only two left, Cameron Norrie, a former semi-finalist, and Sonay Kartal. They are not the most charismatic players on tour, but they are among the most determined. After a precipitous fall in the rankings, Norrie has been grinding his way back into some kind of form, and Kartal, a childhood rival of Raducanu, has after a period of illness risen over 200 places to a live world ranking of 44 since last year’s Wimbledon.

In 2007 Bjorn Borg was asked who he thought might emerge from the next generation to challenge Roger Federer as a potential world number one. He answered without hesitation: Andy Murray. “He has the heart for it. You can always see straight away the people that will put themselves out there.”

Kartal and Norrie don’t possess the extraordinary ability of Murray of course, or the sublime talent of Draper and Raducanu, but they put themselves out there. Modest and resilient, they share similarities: stamina, a desire to keep rallies long, heavily spun forehands, and they could walk along most British high streets without scarcely being recognised. They will be cheering for them on Draper’s Drop.