GAME , SET & MAN OF THE MATCH TO WATSON Heather and Yeovil striker Courtney hitting top form since meeting at Wimbledon
HEATHER WATSON has claimed her love match with non-League striker Courtney Duffus is a winner for her tennis – and for Yeovil Town FC.
The British No2 was down in the dumps after being thrashed in the first round of the Australian Open last year. But she is back here with a huge smile on her face after meeting the former Everton trainee at Wimbledon last summer.
Duffus was voted National League Player of the Month in December after braces against Welling and Fylde and a Boxing Day hat-trick against Torquay.
Watson, the world No75, reached the Hobart International semi-finals last week and faces world No64 Kristyna Pliskova tomorrow in top form.
“It is incredible the contrast between how I was last year and how I am this year,” said Watson. “I feel in a very good place.
“Since we met each other we’re both doing a lot, lot better. Boxing Day we went to Huish Park with his family and he scored a hat-trick, so that was awesome.
He’s had a big part to play, he’s super positive. I don’t like to let boys have too much influence over me but he has been a good influence. He’s so level-headed.
“I think you all know I’m quite emotional. He’s just really, really supportive. He gets up at all hours of the night, he watched all my matches in Hobart. I need that.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily [that he is] a sportsperson, it’s just him as a character. That helps but I know there are sportspeople who don’t understand as well.”
Watson, 27, was first courted by 24-year-old Duffus in July. “It was finals weekend of Wimbledon and I was going out to dinner with Naomi Broady and we just met in a restaurant,” she said.
“You know at a restaurant when they say, ‘Can you wait at the bar’, so it was there. I didn’t know who he was and he didn’t tell me he was a footballer. I found that out later in the night so I was like, ‘For sure, not going to date him’.
“I didn’t Google him because at that stage of my life I had no interest in boys. I didn’t want a boyfriend for a long time so for me it was just going to be a fun night. Nice meal, meet someone new and that’s it. He had other plans. I don’t follow football. I do now, well, I follow Yeovil now.”
British No3 Harriet Dart thinks her work with psychologist Chris Bradley will help her return to the Australian Open after failing to win a game off Maria Sharapova in the first round last year.
Dart, who faces Japan’s Misaki Doi in the first round after coming through qualifying, said: “I definitely think my emotions got the better of me in that match. I speak to my psychologist often and I think that’s really showing.”