At some stage, whether it be in a matter of days or weeks, Heather Watson will reflect on her performance here this year and make a choice. The disappointment of being so close to beating the great Serena Williams will take a while to disappear but the 23-year-old will resolve to dig in, kick on and achieve her goal of being one of the world’s best players.
The Briton’s run to the third round will take her back into the top 50 and the way she played against the world No1 has convinced her that she can go much higher. A top-25 place is her target by the end of the year and to do that she will need to show the same kind of focus and determination in the smaller events as she did on the biggest stage of all.
That is not an easy task. Raising your game on Centre Court with the entire crowd lifting you is one thing, but doing it when one man and his dog are in the stands is another altogether.
Williams’s coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said she had every reason to hold her head high. “She played an incredible match,” he told the Observer. “I looked at her stats at one set all and 3-0 and she’d made four unforced errors. In two and a half sets against Serena, that’s not too bad. If she played like that against any player she would have a good chance to win against almost everybody because she doesn’t miss, she brings all the balls back. When Serena tried to slow down, she attacked and she did well.”
Mouratoglou, who has helped Williams to seven grand slam titles in 12 events since they joined forces, issued a word of caution to the chorus who say she can only take confidence from going so close against arguably the greatest player the women’s game has ever seen. “I don’t know how much confidence you get from a loss, whoever it is against,” the Frenchman said. “It’s still a loss. She was so close to winning it, probably one or two points would have made the difference, but she lost.”
Britain’s Jo Durie, a former world No5 who made the semi-finals of the French and US Opens in 1983 and the Wimbledon quarter-finals a year later, told the Observer it was now that the really hard work would begin if Watson is to get to where she wants to be. “She should take a lot of confidence from it but in her next tournament, I presume in America somewhere, on court six or something with a few people watching, is it going to be the same?” she said. “That’s what you have to take with you and understand that the top players are doing it time and time again, consistently. It’s about moving on again.”
Watson was beaten in the women’s doubles on Saturday, going down 7-6 (7-2), 3-6, 6-0 with Marina Erakovic of New Zealand to Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja.
Watson will play four tournaments this summer in the buildup to the US Open, starting in Washington in the first week of August. Good performances should propel her towards her ranking goal and Durie said she cannot let up. “She won’t ever have the weapons [of the bigger hitters] so she has to play her way, which is getting a lot of balls back and then counterattacking. Then she’s got to keep it going, because [the tour] is relentless.
“If she wants to get [into the] top 20, then it has to be week after week after week. No first-round losses and being out of it, you have to keep that standard going. It’s not easy at all, but what do you want?”
