One by one a local hope was cheered onto the lawns of London SW19 and one by one they slunk away after defeat. That is if they even got on court.
Emma Raducanu, the darling of Middle England ever since she won the 2021 US Open as a qualifier, withdrew on the eve on the opening day with a stress fracture.
Jack Draper, the latest heir to Andy Murray, did the same midway through day one citing an elbow injury.
That left 19 Brits, 11 of whom were in action on Monday. None of them won.
First out to the slaughter was 17-year-old schoolgirl Mika Stojsavljevic, who raised hopes with an early break to take a 2-0 lead against former semi-finalist Belinda Bencic.
That was as good as it got. The Swiss won the next 11 games before progressing 6-2 6-1.
Felix Gill and Max Basing went next, beaten in straight sets, as were Alicia Dudeney and Hannah Klugman.
Oliver Tarvet and teenager Mimi Xu at least won a set, creditably too given they respectively faced French 25th seed Arthur Rinderknech and Australia's experienced Daria Kasatkina.
Harriet Dart created some excitement when she took advantage of an unexpected No.1 Court slot, replacing Raducanu, to threaten a comeback win against former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
But she also lost.
The big hope was Cameron Norrie, South African-born and New Zealand-bred but a Brit since he was 17. Now 30, and the British No.1 due to Draper's injury problems, he was seeded 26th.
But he lost as well, to a qualifier, American Michael Zheng in five sets.
That left, as darkness began to fall, Jack Pinnington Jones up against American 28th seed Brandon Nakashima, and Fran Jones, facing French No.1 Diane Parry.
The remarkable Jones, who has reached as high as world No.65 despite a genetic condition that means she has three fingers and a thumb on each hand and seven toes in total, battled gamely but lost 6-4 6-4.
Pinnington Jones went two sets down but held on long enough to fight another day as darkness and dew forced a third-set suspension.Â
To provide context, that a 17-year-old was playing highlighted one reason for the loss rate. Wimbledon, like the other grand slams, offer local players plenty of wildcards. Seven of the vanquished had been given one. Only Norrie and Jones earned a spot via ranking.
The big hope for a first win is Katie Boulter, who plays an Italian qualifier on Tuesday. And if she fails, well a lot of locals regard her fiancee, Alex de Minaur, as an honorary Brit these days...
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