ByElizabeth HudsonBBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n
Britain's Katie Boulter was unable to build on a superb start as she lost to Italian top seed Jasmine Paolini in the last eight of the Merida Open.<\/p>\n
Against the world number seven in Mexico, Boulter won the first set in 28 minutes without dropping a game.<\/p>\n
But errors started to creep in as Paolini went on to win 0-6 6-3 6-3.<\/p>\n
Having won only three points on her serve in the opening set, Paolini started the second set strongly, holding for the first time and then breaking to go 3-1 up.<\/p>\n
Boulter, who came into the contest on the back of a seven-match winning run, including claiming the Ostrava Open title<\/a>, broke straight back to love but neither player could hold serve in the next three games.<\/p>\n It was Paolini who held her nerve to take the second set and level the contest.<\/p>\n The 2024 Wimbledon and French Open finalist raced into a 2-0 lead in the decider and, although Boulter broke back and held serve to lead 3-2, the Italian's confidence grew as she won four games in a row to claim a semi-final spot.<\/p>\n "It was a really tough one – Katie, the first set she was smashing every ball and hitting a winner everywhere," Paolini told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n "I was telling myself to play more deep in the court and hit the ball harder because I had to raise the level to try and win the match and in the end it worked out.<\/p>\n "I was trying to be calm, to think what I had to do. I think when you're nervous you can't find the solutions."<\/p>\n Live scores, results and order of play<\/p>\n <\/a><\/li>\n Get tennis news sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Paolini ends Boulter's winning run at Merida OpenImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Boulter is hoping for a fresh start after a disappointing 2025ByElizabeth HudsonBBC Sport journalistPubli…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Related topics<\/h2>\n
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