Ollie's girl: my pride in his battling peformance against King Carlos

In the end it was a glorious defeat for Ollie Tarvet against the reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz on centre court but the young Britain was a smash hit with the Wimbledon faithful and his American girlfriend. The Express caught up with Helaena Staebler, 20, not long after her boyfriend had left centre court to a rapturous ovation.

Beaming with delight, she said: "I am honestly just very proud of him.

"It was so exciting to watch and I'm just really excited to see how far he's going to go with all this."

Ollie, 21, and Helaena, from California, have been together for a year after meeting at the University of San Diego where they are both students. She is studying biology while his subject is communications.

From the family seats Helaena was seen standing up and cheering Ollie along with his parents Garry and Jenny and fellow American students who had flown in for the special event.

And Helaena, dressed in a low-cut blue dress, could not resist taking a few pictures on her phone to record the momentous occassion.

Asked how she felt after watching him force Alcaraz to battle all the way for his win, she said: "I am just extremely proud, it was amazing."

And that word pride was used once again minutes later when we caught up with Ollie's dad Garry outside centre court after his son's 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 loss.

He told the Express: "It was just an unbelievable level of play from Oliver. I'm glad he held it together and looked mentally strong.

"We know he's very strong, a great competitor on the collegiate circuit and I think he showed everyone out there what he's about."

Garry, a construction manager, added: "The level of play was very high. The first set was always going to be difficult, but he went on to break Alcaraz's serve twice so yeah, we're really, really pleased."

He said a lot of his son's success and reaching the second round at Wimbledon despite being ranked 733 and still a student was down to his team at San Diego university.

"He works his socks off to train to get to that level and it was there for everyone to see today and he will just be really pleased that he put a great performance for the crowd."

He said his son will now return to college tennis in the US and continue working hard on his game.

Asked if his Wimbledon run could be the springboard for a great career in tennis, he said: "There's stll some game improvement areas there for him.

"But yes he has got to a great level and he could be a handful for sure."

During the match a group of Ollie's University of San Diego friends, who had flown in from America especially for the occasion, kept him revved up with cheers of "Let's go Ollie!" and "Ollie, Ollie, Ollie!"

And the Wimbledon crowd roared with approval as he fought for every point against Alcaraz.

One of Ollie's American friends, who gave his first name as Stin, predicted before the game he would create "fireworks on court."

And while it did not quite get that explosive battling Ollie, from St Albans, did his family and friends and Britain proud.

Alcaraz was also glowing about the Brit afer the game.

Following the Centre Court clash, he revealed he told Tarvet: "I told him just congratulations for the run, just keep it going, keep working hard. It seems like he's a really nice guy and really nice, hard worker. It seems like he loves tennis. He played with such a good passion out there that is really important.

"How far he can go, I don't know. As far as I know, he's in college. Let's see what he's going to choose. If he chooses still in college, the level that we can see in college is pretty high. I hear that there's 26 players right now that have been in college or is in college right now. I think the level is pretty high.

"Let's see, if he keep working hard, if he keep practicing hard and playing in professional level, I think he can go far."