‘I know how I would beat her if we met again,’ says defeated heroine Watson
British No.1 pushes Williams to brink
HEATHER WATSON stopped just short of calling for a boxing-style rematch with the world No.1 Serena Williams after coming within two points of recording the most significant win in British women’s tennis for decades.
The 23-year-old from Guernsey said she was confident she would overcome the 20-time grand slam winner, who is pursuing the full collection of major titles, if she met her again following this 6-2, 4-6, 5-7 reverse in front of an enthralled Centre Court crowd.
While the 33-year-old moves on to face her sister Venus in the last 16, Watson had the consolation of proving to herself that she can mix it with the very best.
Had Watson been victorious, it would have been the first time a British woman had dethroned a No.1 ranked player since Sue Barker beat Chris Evert in 1978. “I know how I’d play,” Watson said. “I’d know my game plan. Even now I just wish I could maybe go back and play one point differently to see if it would have changed things. I wouldn’t be playing if I didn’t think I could beat the best in the world.”
Watson’s performance clearly delighted Andy Murray, who took to Twitter express his joy. The Scot posted: “Retweet if @HeatherWatson92 just made you feel really effing proud! Favourite if she made you feel really effing proud!”
Murray himself is back in action today when he takes on Andreas Seppi of Italy third on Centre Court as he attempts to book his place in the second week at Wimbledon 2015, while James Ward faces Vasek Pospisil of Canada in an attempt to keep two Britons in the last 16 for the first time since 2002.
Murray, arguably one of the finest sportsmen on the planet, said he would be interested in taking part in Superstars, the sporting challenge show.
“I don’t know whether I would fancy myself at it but I’d like to do it and would find it fun,” said the man from Dunblane. “For tennis, you have to be good at a lot of things. But my speed on the tennis court is because I am quick over two or three metres, or changing direction.
“Over a 50m or 100m race I am not going to be particularly quick in comparison to some football players or some rugby players – anything like that. But I suppose we are used to being very versatile.
“There are a lot of different skills that you have to train in tennis in terms of the strokes – forehands, backhands, serves, returns, smashes, drop shots. Different spins, different surfaces.”
Shortly before Murray takes to the court, also in action at SW19 will be the teenage girl being dubbed the “new Andy Murray”.
One of three girls and one boy in the juniors, 15-year-old Ali Collins, who also hails from Dunblane, has been handed a wild card into the girls’ singles event for the first time and she will begin her campaign against Sofya Zhuk of Russia.
Murray’s mother Judy has said she would be reluctantly prepared to fund Collins’ development at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Florida if the LTA were unable or unwilling to do so.
BREAK Serena Williams’ serve and you have a chance of beating her. Expose the American’s relative lack of pace and you are closer still. Capitalise on her errors and you are within touching distance of victory.
Heather Watson did all these things in her third-round match against the No.1 seed and she was indeed within touching distance of what would have been the greatest win of the Briton’s career so far. In fact at one stage she was only three points away.
But when you are up against one of the greatest players of all time, those three points – which in other circumstances might be so straightforward, simple and small – take on an intimidating magnitude. So too, on the other side of the net, does Williams herself, who besides all her other qualities is one of the most physically frightening competitors ever. And so Watson, despite serving for the match after breaking her opponent’s serve several times and doing so many other things right, lost out. She came agonisingly close, but not close enough, losing 2-6, 6-4, 5-7 on Centre Court.
The British No. 1 has never gone further than the third round at Wimbledon and when the draw pitted her against the former champion there was little reason to presume she would do so this time. There was even less reason when she lost the first set in a mere 25 minutes. At that stage the contest looked set to be wrapped up within the hour.
Instead, as the increasingly breezy conditions made serving accurately more difficult, Watson, the world No.59, staged an inspired comeback. She broke serve to take a 3-2 lead, and although she was then broken back immediately, she took advantage of a string of unforced errors to go 5-4 up. There was a nervous moment when, serving for the set, she double-faulted to give Williams a break point, but she regained her composure to level. Anyone who presumed this was no more than token resistance to the American’s progress to the last 16 was soon proved wrong as Watson raced into a 3-0 lead in the deciding set in front of an increasingly partisan crowd.
Then Williams hit back from that perilous position of being 3-0 down to take the next four games. Was that the natural order restored? Not quite, because after holding her own serve to make it 4-4, Watson then broke Williams again to love, just as play reached the two-hour mark.
Serving for the match, Watson was under incredible pressure. She came within two points of victory but only when she closed to 30-40 rather than from a leading position herself.
Eventually, on her fourth break point, Williams took the game to make it 5-5. If at the point the contest was still in the balance, that changed in the next game when the top seed held easily to go 6-5 up. Serving to stay in the match, Watson saved two match points, but could not do so a third time, and a crowd that had been close to fever pitch slumped into the disappointed silence that anticlimax brings before breaking out into sustained and well deserved applause for both women, but especially for the British player.
“I think she played unbelievably,” Williams said later of her opponent. “She really went out there with a mindset of winning this match.
“She did her best today. I thought she served well. I think she did everything great. She kept her unforced errors really, really low.”
Even allowing for Williams’ superior experience – she is a decade older than her vanquished opponent and has played hundreds more matches at this level – this still has to go down as one that got away for Watson.
Having said that, she showed that, after a long spell out with illness, she is capable of continuing to improve on her world ranking. Once the initial disappointment of defeat is over, she can learn from – and be inspired by – this experience.
“I was two points away from winning that match, so I’m pretty disappointed,” Watson said. “The atmosphere on the court was amazing – I think it really helped me and pushed me. I just wish I could have closed it out at the end. It’s very positive that I put myself in this position. I mean, I could have been out in the first round of this tournament. I was match points down. I gave myself the opportunity to play against the best player in the world.
“I also gave myself the opportunity to beat her. I didn’t take it this time. But I’m really glad I was in that situation because I can learn from it and do better next time. I’d say she had a lot of free points on her serve.
“She served very well and when it was important she was able to produce very good tennis. I thought I had a lot of opportunities to get even further ahead in the third set, but she was just able to just hold on. That’s why she is the best in the world. I’ve learnt that I can compete with the best in the world and I can play really good tennis. I just need to use this to motivate myself for the future.”
Serena’s opponent in the fourth round on Monday is her older sister Venus, whom she has beaten in three finals here as well as losing to her once. Although there was a time when it was hard to predict the outcome of meetings between the sisters, in recent years Serena has been by far the better of the two. Even so, the younger woman only leads the head to head 14-11, and when the two last met on the tour, in Montreal in 2014, Venus won.
Venus has looked rejuvenated during the early rounds here and reached the last 16 with a more secure win than Serena, beating the unseeded Serbian Aleksandra Krunic 6-3, 6-2.