It’s amazing how attached one becomes to a player after you’ve seen them live a few times. When I write my weekly British Tennis Watch for this very publication, quite often I’m writing about players I’ve never had a chance to see live, and they are, for all intents and purposes, just names and statistics on a screen.

But that has changed this week, especially for Charles Broom, because I’ve been lucky enough to see some or all of all five of his matches at the Lexus Ilkley Trophy this week – mainly because he has been scheduled on court at times that I’ve actually been able to be there outside of doing my actual day job.

And so it was again on Thursday, when qualifier Charles Broom took to Centre Court at 11am – I was there, and able to watch all but the final few games before dashing home for an important meeting. And boy, did Charles give it a good go against Hungarian Zsombor Piros, not the first player far more highly ranked than Charles that he has had to play this week.

And Broom started the better, once again using his experience on grass to his advantage, and although he couldn’t find a way to break the serve of the Hungarian in the first set, he did manage to clinch the set in a tiebreak. Serving at 5-3 in the breaker, Broom fired an ace down the tee, but Piros was hugely unhappy that the line judges had called the ball in. After remonstrating with the umpire for a few moments, he tried to compose himself, but served a double fault to hand the set to the Brit. So far, so good.

But Piros grew into the match, and began to hit his shots harder and more freely, and Broom was unable to cope. The Hungarian broke serve just once in the second set, but it was enough to level the match.

The third set was a real humdinger, and really could have gone either way. Trailing 1-2 on serve, Piros took a medical time out to have some massage therapy done on his hamstring, and there were hints that it was affecting his movement for the next few games thereafter. But this didn’t affect the scoreline – the Hungarian continued to serve well and remain solid, and the game edged its way to 5-5 in the decider.

Then came what looked to be a decisive break of serve – Broom, under the pressure of needing to win his service game, crumbled, and Piros broke serve crucially to lead 6-5. But Broom, who hadn’t broken the Hungarian’s serve all match, dug deep and managed to break break immediately, taking the final set into a tiebreak.

Sadly, by this time Piros had recovered from his hamstring niggle and was simply playing too well – he won the tiebreak 7-2 and thus the match, ending British interest in the Men’s Singles.

Credit to Broom, though, who has had an excellent week and has earned a wildcard to next week’s Wimbledon qualifying draw. Good luck at SW19, Charles!

The next match on Centre Court was British wildcard Sonay Kartal, who was up against Aliona Bolsova of Spain, who had already ended the runs of Brits Lily Miyazaki and Isabelle Lacy in the previous two rounds. Kartal, though, is on fire this week so far, and she dispatched the Spaniard 6-3 6-3 without too much trouble. She’s first up on Centre Court on Friday against top seed Emma Navarro for a place in Saturday’s final. Sonay – I apologise for not having made it to any of your matches yet, but I promise I’ll give you a proper write-up tomorrow after seeing your semi-final!

There’s also still some British interest in the Women’s doubles – Madeleine Brooks and Holly Hutchinson came through their quarter-final against Valentini Grammatikopoulou of Greece and Simona Waltert of Switzerland, winning 10-6 in a tense and exciting match tiebreak. They’re first up on Court 1 on Friday in their semi-final.

So the Men’s semi-finals are France’s Arthur Cazaux – who lost to Andy Murray in the Nottingham CH175 final last week – against Jason Kubler of Australia, and Austria’s Sebastian Ofner against Piros. And in the Women’s draw, it’s Emma Navarro against Sonny Kartal, and the winner of that will play the winner of Dalma Galfi and Mirjam Bjorklund.