This was the moment when the crowd really lost their reserve and turned the final into a celebration of our returning freedoms. And then, when Barty served for a straight-sets win at 6-5 in the second, she middled enough returns to break back and force the tie-break. Her own serve, which she has adjusted this season with the help of her coach Sascha Bajin, began to find its mark. But here she dug in, and with the excitable crowd acting as an emotional crutch, she worked her way back into contention. Pliskova also has a reputation for getting down on herself. She chose to serve first – always an indication of a confident frame of mind – and then hit her spots so accurately that Pliskova could barely put a racket on the ball, even though she is a stilt-legged figure with the long limbs of a giant wading bird. Rather, this was a case of Barty delivering perfect execution. Pliskova was slow to relax, bunting the ball back without much pace or penetration, but it wasn’t as if she was spraying errors in all directions. The downside of the best-of-three-set format is that it can all be over in a flash if one player doesn’t settle. At this early stage, we weren’t looking forward to a Barty party, but worrying about a Czech-out from Pliskova. When the players sat down at the first changeover, Barty had won all 12 points and established a 3-0 lead without a hint of hesitation. One of the reasons for the joyful mood was that, for the first ten minutes, this had threatened to be the biggest mismatch imaginable. The closest analogue would be Serena Williams’s narrow defeat of Heather Watson in 2015, when everyone at the All England Club entered a state of mass frenzy. I can’t remember such an enthusiastic and influential crowd – at least, not when there has been no British hope to cheer for.

Wimbledon2021 results