They wheeled their small mountain of kit through Customs, Keller pacing a few steps ahead of Rosario and wondering how her coach would react to her firm words. She took a breath before stepping through the doors and out into the real world.

The sharks were waiting, and they closed in around Keller before the security doors slid shut. Rosario pulled up close and both women used their luggage trollies like a makeshift snowplough, bulldozing their way through the intimidating crowd. Shutters snapped and flashlights strobed all around them, and gradually the reporters boxed them in and slowed them down.

Welcome to England.

‘Are you looking forward to Wimbledon, Miss Keller?’ one of them shouted. ‘Do you think we’ll see you in the final?’

She ignored the question and kept walking, and from every direction hungry photographers shouted, ‘Kirsten, over here.’

She turned her head towards the loudest voice and caught a glimpse of a balding man in his late forties, who seemed to be made entirely of sweat and stubble and malevolence. His eyes glinted as he realised Keller was looking his way.

‘What happened in Paris, Kirsten?’ The bald guy’s cockney accent came ringing through. ‘Did you bottle it in Paris?’

The floodgates opened.

‘Did you have a bet on Basilia?’ another one shouted. ‘Did the bookies pay out?’

‘Are you pregnant?’

Keller knew that Tennis Ace Denies Pregnancy Rumour would probably sell even more copies than Tennis Ace is Pregnant, so she kept her mouth shut, her eyes forward and kept bulldozing the reporters slowly out of the way, not running, but walking, and dying inside a little bit with every step. The onslaught of questions continued. The flashbulbs subsided momentarily and she could make out the sweating bald guy again. He looked gleeful, pumped up and breathless.

‘Are you on drugs, Miss Keller? Did you get the wrong dose?’

He opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but before he got a chance his face screwed up in pain and confusion. His head was thrown forward and he cried out in pain. Someone had thumped him hard on the back of the head and he toppled over on the floor in front of Keller and Rosario. It could have been anyone in the middle of the crush. A dirty trick played on a dirty trickster. Kirsten Keller’s heart bled for him. Not.