Next month, the world No. 10 tennis player will play her seventh Solheim Cup, while most of her potential European teammates are battling for the form the continent needs to defend the trophy for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year.

Memories go back to 2021, when Anna Nordqvist took a thrilling win at Carnoustie.

She led a European resurgence that resulted in arguably the continent’s greatest Solheim Cup success.

The Swede beat her compatriot Madelene Sagstrom and the Briton Georgia Hall, and the Dane Nanna Koerstz Madsen also finished in the top five on the Angus Links golf course.

The then captain of the European national team, Catriona Matthew, described these results as the perfect confidence boost before her team – without any support due to Covid restrictions – travelled to Toledo and sensationally defended the trophy.

This week, current captain Suzann Pettersen is desperately hoping for a similar performance to boost her hopes of keeping the precious piece of cut crystal.

With the European and American teams set for the September showdown in Virginia next week, it’s impossible to watch the events here without thinking of Solheim.

Pettersen has reason to be worried. Europe’s best player is world number eight Céline Boutier, but despite a brilliant start to the Olympic competition, the Frenchwoman is still far from her best form.

Since her second place at the World Championships in March, she has not been able to record a top 10 finish.

Hall has dropped to 40th in the world rankings and has only one top-10 finish this year – third in the Aramco Series event at the Centurion Club in July. The 2018 champion from Dorset was 12th last week, which is encouraging.

But Maja Stark, heroine of the drawn match at Finca Cortesin last year, missed the cut in Dundonald, and the shared 10th place in Paris is the Swede’s only top 10 finish since April.

Leona Maguire is also struggling despite her victory at the Aramco event. Since then, the Irish Solheim star has failed to finish in the top 50 in four tournaments.

Spain’s Carlota Ciganda has not had a good finish since her sixth-place finish at the Chevron Championship in April, while Sagstrom has not had a top-10 finish since May.

Germany’s Esther Henseleit is bucking the trend in this miserable summer for the leading European women, making a Solheim debut in Virginia after taking silver at the Olympics and then finishing second at Dundonald.