Sometimes, a glorious sporting tale just creeps up on you, and then…bang!

In 2021, for instance, it started dawning on a nation that what Emma Raducanu, a British qualifier, was achieving at the US Open was pretty outlandish. Then, whoosh, it became positively miraculous as she lifted the title itself.

So, what must New Zealand today be making of the tale of the wondrously named Lulu Sun, the nation’s first woman to reach the fourth round here for 65 years?

She began this Wimbledon as a qualifier and, now after six straight wins, finds herself, by happy chance, up against the woman who had the best run through qualifying. Ever.

So who is Lulu Sun, Lulu was asked. Deep breath and a smile…born in New Zealand from a little town called Te Anau where there are “practically more sheep and deer than people”, schooled early in Shanghai, then raised in Switzerland and educated in the US. Dad’s Croatian, step-dad’s German-English from Devon and mum’s Chinese…phew!

She gets her feistiness from mum, her laid-back nature from dad, her adventurous side comes from New Zealand and her neutral calm side from Switzerland. And, yes, she concedes, her cosmopolitan background does sound a bit like that of the Canadian-born Briton Raducanu, with her Chinese mum and Romanian dad.

Sun shining brightly in SW19

She’s already made waves here, knocking out Australian Open finalist Qinwen Zheng, but Lulu will make New Zealand shout if she can now spoil the glorious revival of Raducanu, whose victory over Maria Sakkari in the last round was her second triumph over a top 10 player in just two weeks.

That’s something she hadn’t previously achieved in her entire career, even during her Flushing Meadows adventure. She’s buoyant, enjoying a “free swing” at the title and having more fun on a tennis court than she can remember.

We’re all hoping that “free swing” won’t be compromised by the wrist issue which forced her to pull out as Andy Murray’s partner in the mixed doubles.

It’s possible that Raducanu, should she progress, wouldn’t have to meet another seed until the semi-finals, where Coco Gauff is currently heading with terrifying efficiency.

The No.2 seed has dropped just 10 games through her first three matches but won’t be expecting life to be so straightforward against Emma Navarro, a player she’s known since she was a kid, even before she introduced herself as ‘Coco’ while enchanting Wimbledon back in 2019.

New York-born, Charleston-raised Navarro is three years older but is now making a dash towards the top that Gauff always expected. “Just growing up with her, I always knew she was very talented and knew her game would translate well on tour," said the 20-year-old.

Navarro, the daughter of a billionaire financier, looked pretty much a million dollars herself when ending Naomi Osaka’s adventure in the second round, but the memory of her drubbing by Gauff in Auckland at the start of the year does not bode well.

Jannik Sinner is the man with the target on his back these days in the men’s game, and the brilliant American southpaw Ben Shelton is just the sort of hot-shot who will fancy his chances of shooting down the world No.1’s eight-match winning streak on grass following his triumph in Halle.

Roger Federer looked on with the odd approving nod as Shelton whistled 38 winners and 140mph serves past Denis Shapovalov, and he became the first US left-hander to make the fourth round since John McEnroe in 1992, a fellow who had also had a bit of the star quality that the 21-year-old boasts.

Sinner should get worried if it goes the distance. Shelton is the first to win three-straight five-setters at Wimbledon since Ernests Gulbis in 2018; no-one’s ever won four on the bounce in the Open era.

Talking of star quality, Carlos Alcaraz continues to glitter but now faces a fellow with a touch of his own elan in Ugo Humbert, a swashbuckling French left-hander who has the ability on his day to slice up opponents with the same dexterity that his dad, a purveyor of fine meats in Metz, chops up the goods at the family butchers. This will be fun.

It’s been fabulous to also see Grigor Dimitrov, at 33, winding back the clock a decade to when he was a semi-finalist here, hitting that glorious backhand so strikingly en route to his next tantalising date with Daniil Medvedev. Didn’t that one-hander make him one of the last pandas, someone suggested to him. You know, endangered but beautiful. Dimitrov just beamed, and we look forward to seeing it unleashed once more.