Watson suffers yet another early exit

Heather Watson’s poor recent form continued with a straightsets defeat to Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the J&T Banka Prague Open first round.

Watson remains without a win since defeating Donna Vekic in the quarter-finals of the Hobart International in January – a run of eight successive matches.

The 25-year-old was beaten 6-1 6-3 in one hour and 26 minutes.

Watson was broken twice as she slipped 4-0 behind before eventually getting on the board in the fifth game, but dropped the next two to lose the opening set in 37 minutes.

Schmiedlova, who has won all three of her WTA titles on clay, led 2-0 before Watson hit back to break the Slovakian’s serve three times in a row, only to hand it back on each occasion.

Meanwhile, Dan Evans suffered a first-round defeat at the hands of Austrian Lucas Miedler at the Glasgow Challenger in his first tournament since completing a drugs ban.

The 27-year-old had to come through qualifying for the tournament following the end of his 12-month ban after he failed a test for cocaine in Barcelona last April.

The Briton dropped just three points in a dominant start to race into a 3-0 lead before taking the first set 6-2.

However, Miedler stormed back to break three times as Evans struggled with his match fitness to earn an impressive 2-6 6-2 6-4 victory at Scotstoun Leisure Centre.