Lily Miyazaki in the money after ‘one of the best wins’ in her career

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Louise Thomas

Editor

British wild card Lily Miyazaki doubled her earnings for the year with an hour’s work as she reached the Wimbledon second round for the first time.

The Tokyo-born 28-year-old pocketed £93,000 by beating Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch 6-2 6-1.

“It’s huge,” she admitted. “Obviously it helps with the travel, my training, some things like that.

“But to be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about that when I was playing. I just really wanted to go out there and put in a good performance, see how I keep improving my level.

“Yeah, obviously the financial side is massive for me. Hopefully I can use that to keep building my ranking, keep going forwards.”

It was a second straight first-round win at grand slam level for Miyazaki after her victory over Margarita Betova at last year’s US Open.

She served superbly, dropping just seven points with the ball in her hand and not facing a single break point.

Miyazaki also hit 14 winners to Korpatsch’s three and made just 15 unforced errors in comparison to her opponent’s 26.

“How does this win rank? I’d say definitely one of the higher ones because I haven’t played at the main draw of grand slams often. This is my third time,” she added.

“So yeah, I think it’s one of my best wins of my career. Obviously she’s a top-100 player. Yeah, I’m pleased with it.”

Miyazaki faces a second-round meeting with 14th seed Daria Kasatkina – last week’s Eastbourne winner – on Wednesday, possibly on one of the show courts.

“I’ve never played her before, but I’ve definitely watched her play in the past,” she said. “She’s on good form. It will be good to see where my game’s at.

“If the opportunity is there for a big court, to play on a big court, it would be amazing. But, I mean, any court here is so special.”