Processing the excitement of this first week’s action, it is salutary to look back 60 years to a Championships when headlines crackled with dramatic storylines surrounding the brilliance of a young British girl, a game-changing fall on Centre Court, rumours of retirement and all-round admiration for a ladies’ singles champion who quashed her problematic nerves and succeeded at last in an 11th attempt to win Wimbledon.

All this (and so much more) stemmed from just one match – the 1961 ladies’ singles final, when Angela Mortimer beat Christine Truman 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to claim her third Grand Slam crown.

Each year The Championships serve up a smorgasbord of talking points and achievements, frustrations, what-if debates and opinion-dividing scenarios.

The meeting of Mortimer, the shy 29-year-old No.7 seed from Devon, and Truman, the 20-year-old No.6 seed from Essex, was a white-knuckle ride encapsulating all these elements, with a conclusion that divided tennis fans and even Truman’s family in the aftermath.

The best finals are fraught with tension, engaging spectators in a physical contest that is determined on psychological strength or fragility.

On July 5, 1961, mental resilience would additionally be tested by a 40-minute mid-match rain delay and the controversial silence of a line judge, later derided in the Daily Express as “Mr. Red Sox”.

But those episodes were mere asides in a final that turned on a painful tumble.

The ladies’ singles final of the 75th staging of the Wimbledon Championships was billed as an intriguing battle of tactical nous from Mortimer versus the driving power wielded by Truman, and it was the younger of the pair who stormed to an early lead.

A set up, and within a point to take a 5-3 lead in the second, Truman crashed to the ground, injuring her leg, while chasing a ball that had spun off the net cord.

Earlier that year, she had suffered a thrombosis in the same leg and spectators spoke of witnessing a visible agonising fear cross the youngster’s face. Had it recurred when she was just five minutes from victory?

Truman composed herself nevertheless, but it soon became clear that the injury had affected her leg drive and taken the sting out of her serve.

“For half a dozen games Miss Truman could only move with the greatest difficulty. She could go forward but not backward and frequently she mistimed shots on the baseline,” wrote Henry Raven in The Sunday Times.

“Yet somehow she managed to stay in the match. Bravely she held in the final set until at last it seemed that she might gain a dramatic and surprising victory.”

Next came the fluffed line call and over-ruling from the umpire’s chair. With the score at 3-3 and deuce in the final set, Truman directed a smash to the baseline.

“For some reason the wrong score was called and the umpire stopped play in the middle of the rally to award the advantage point to Miss Mortimer. Miss Truman was so disturbed that she served a double fault,” wrote Raven.

Cue the famous Centre Court Crowd Gasp followed by the muted chatter that so often signals a match-turning moment.

The incident would prompt the Daily Express sports editor to call for a new elite corps of more youthful line judges for Centre Court occasions: “Did Mr Red Sox doze off? Did he daydream? Was he wondering if there were strawberries and cream for tea?... No one knows. We do know he upset two girls and 17,000 spectators whose emotions were being stretched to breaking point by the dramatic struggle on Centre Court.”

Mortimer had beaten Truman seven times in 10 previous meetings. On that drizzly July day, it was universally agreed that the 20-year-old, attacking all the time, was the better, bolder player. How galling then to see her moment of glory slither into a painful defeat.

As a committed athlete and a legendary trier, Mortimer seized on her chance, employing a series of lobs and drop shots against her hindered opponent to claim the second set and impose her will on the decider. Courtside, Truman’s young sister quietly wept as the inevitable unfolded.

“Miss Mortimer, ruthlessly, impassionately, turned the advantage to her account… She was entitled to do so. She was not there as a sister of mercy or for fun,” ran the report in The Times.

So Angela Mortimer was hailed as "a fine champion", the new Queen of Wimbledon. Christine Truman, on the other hand, earned eternal affection for her heroic fight while hinting she might now retire.

“She must carry on,” trumpeted her father, who was convinced she would have won but for her fall. “Of course the decision must be Christine’s but I would like her to come back for another try.”

Truman’s mother told reporters she was all for her daughter quitting. “I would like her to finish now. I always said from the time she was 12 that I’d like her to get to the top and then finish at 21. She will be 21 in January and she has got to the top. I would hate for her to win Wimbledon at 55 and be a sour, hard-bitten person.”

Two years earlier, Truman, at 18, had become the youngest women’s singles champion on the clay of Paris. In 1960, she had won the ladies’ doubles at the Australian Open, playing alongside Maria Bueno. Despite the disappointment of the 1961 final, she came back to compete at Wimbledon another 10 times, reaching the semi-final in 1965.

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