In a match bristling with nerves and uncertainty on either side of the net, Heather Watson and Sam Stosur engaged in two hours and 15 minutes of mutual suffering on day two of the Australian Open before the British player prevailed to go through to the second round in three sets.
There can hardly have been more fluctuations at the Melbourne Stock Exchange as their games meshed angrily on a hot but not oppressive afternoon on Margaret Court Arena. Watson beat the No18 seed 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 and retired to the shade of the locker room to await the result of the match between the American Jennifer Brady and Belgium’s Maryna Zanevska, which was due to start on Court 5.
This was Stosur’s third first-round loss in a row this year, after disappointments in Brisbane and Sydney. There is home pressure and there is outright phobia. Her record here suggests the latter might be her real problem.
Whoever Watson plays next, meanwhile, she will have benefited from what was a tough mirror image of herself.
They have different frailties. Where Watson’s problems accumulate in bunches of close, lost causes, Stosur explodes in bursts of rash shot-making, unable to control the vicious power that rolls through her muscular right arm. She struck 47 unforced errors to cancel out 35 winners and disintegrated in the third set.
It made for an intriguing contest, with neither sure of dominance until Watson properly got going. But, even though she bagelled Stosur in the third, the set still ate up 48 minutes on the clock, as there were multiple deuce struggles all the way to the finish line.
Oddly, although possibly a megawatt short of the Australian’s hitting capacity, Watson took the first set with the second of her six aces, which she slapped with intent down the middle. It was a wind farm up against a nuclear power station, though, as Stosur regularly belted her first serve 20 miles an hour faster than Watson’s second.
Her challenge was to resist those lapses that have undone her in the past when in good positions. There was a smattering of British support to encourage her, but Stosur, naturally, was the crowd favourite – even though she was doomed to another losing effort on home soil.
At times, it is easy to see how she beat Serena Williams to win the US Open on the night of her life six years ago. When she wraps her racket around a top-spun forehand and gets her radar right, there isn’t a player on the Tour who could conjure a worthwhile return. Unfortunately, she mixes winners with horror shots too often to cash in.
She held through deuce at the start of the second, though, and remained calm to go 2-0 up, as Watson’s forehand, a model of consistency to that point, let her down on break point.
The set got away from Watson just past the hour when Stosur slotted her fourth ace down the T, at just 105 mph but swerving away from the British No2.
Stosur held through a tough deuce fight in the seventh game, Watson stayed in the set with her fifth ace but the Australian got over the line to force the decider
Stosur did not fold, but her wild ground strokes grew wilder by the rally, and Watson just had to remain patient in the exchanges to get the job done.
