It has been another summer of dashed hopes and teasing promise for British women’s tennis but Heather Watson, Laura Robson and Johanna Konta have arrived at Flushing Meadows with dramatically contrasting baggage.
Since Wimbledon Watson, Britain’s No1 who has slipped to No61 in the world, has struggled to rediscover the magic that inspired her to produce tennis of such consistent high quality that she came desperately close to ruining Act III of Serena Williams’s run at a calendar grand slam.
But for a couple of stray shots towards the end of their third-round match Watson would have beaten the best player in the world that day, and wholly on merit. “At 30-all I was serving to give myself match point,” she recalls reluctantly. “I hit a forehand that wrong-footed her and she just got it back and I’m thinking: ‘If I’d hit it just a little bit harder …’
“But I haven’t played in the way I have wanted to since that match. Right now I am really pleased with the way I am playing but I haven’t got the results I want. Yes, it was a big match and I played well there but I haven’t capitalised on it. I was close but at the end of the day I didn’t do it, did I?”
On her feelings immediately after the match, she says: “I wasn’t really that excited, although it’s nice to know the impact it had and the support I must have had when I played it. Everybody is asking me: ‘Was it the best time of my life?’ And I don’t really understand that. I lost.”
When it was pointed out she could have stopped history, Watson bridled. “That breaks my heart, questions like that. But I do think about it. I’ve watched the match over and that’s, like, the worst thing ever because I just want to go back and hit that shot a little different. I can only learn from it and make sure I don’t make the same mistake next time. Now I feel like I’m slowly starting to find my game.”
She will have to find it quickly against the American Lauren Davis, whom she meets in the first match on court 17 on Monday. “I’ve practised with her a few times but not recently,” Watson says. “I’ve never played her before but I know her game quite well because I’ve seen her play a lot on the Tour. She’s quite small and a very good mover, a nimble road-runner, a hustler. So I will have to be aggressive and confident with my shots.”
Robson, meanwhile, has had disappointment of a different kind. She has had to grind her way back to something like competitive form through rehab and the soul-withering experience of playing on the very edges of the circuit, after 17 worrying months in which she could barely hold a racket in her damaged wrist. But the former British No1, now languishing at No727 in the world, is bouncy, content and fit again, with reasonable hopes of being competitive in the first round against the Russian Elena Vesnina on Tuesday.
Konta, though, has been the revelation. When the British qualifier steps on to court against the American wild card Louisa Chirico, she will bring confidence gathered in an unbroken run of 13 wins – including three qualifying matches here – since losing to Maria Sharapova in the first round at Wimbledon.
“I’ve known Louisa for a little bit now,” she says. “We practised together here last year and I’ve seen her around the tour – especially on the USTA challenger circuit in America at the beginning of the year. She’s been winning a lot of matches this year, so I’ve got no easy task. To be honest, I’m just looking forward to being in the main draw here and getting to go out on Tuesday and compete.”
The fortunes of the British trio are in their own hands as much as others but their paths are likely to be as different as the routes they took to get here. If Watson finds her best tennis, she can map out a route through the draw that includes Sharapova and the unpredictable Eugenie Bouchard [with Jimmy Connors coaching her] in her quarter, and Williams the indomitable locked door in the semi-finals.
For Robson and Konta the lurking danger in their quarter of the draw is Petra Kvitova. The former Wimbledon champion and No5 seed came late to the tournament, buoyed by winning her third title in New Haven at the weekend, after the disappointment of going out early in both Toronto and Cincinnati.
