Heather Watson and Serena Williams had never played each other before Friday, and the world No1 admitted earlier this week that she “[didn’t] know her at all”.
But the British 23-year-old’s name will be considerably more familiar to Williams today, after Watson pushed the five-time Wimbledon champion to the very brink of a sensational Centre Court defeat, only to be squeezed out by the American superstar in a heartbreaking final set.
The Guernsey-native, who idolised the American as a youngster and grew up with pictures of Williams on her bedroom wall, fought her way back from one set down to emphatically take the second set and come within two points of victory in the third.
Williams, however, has not won 20 grand slams for nothing, and she battled back to break the hearts of a crowd that had roared deafening support for the Briton for more than two hours.
Speaking immediately after the match, an almost stunned Williams admitted that it was probably the toughest contest she had ever fought at Wimbledon: “I think she played unbelieveable. She should have won the match.”
Watson, for her part, was inconsolable at the result. “It was a tough, tough ask today, but I was super-, super-close. I think that’s what really hurts the most.”
Though Watson is the British No1 and came into her third round match on the back of two impressively tough-minded wins, very few would have expected a performance of such fire – or a result so close. But Watson’s slight 5’7” frame and softly spoken manner belie a grit and confidence that have been hard-earned.
Born in St Peter Port in Guernsey in 1992 to Ian, a Mancunian-born businessman, and Michelle, who was born in Papua New Guinea, she took up tennis at seven at around the same time as she made her first visit to Wimbledon.
On that visit, she said earlier this week, “I bought two posters: One was Venus and Serena together and one was Roger Federer. Those were the three players that I liked. They went straight up on my wall.”
At 12 she left home, alone, to board at Nick Bollettieri’s tennis academy in Florida; three years later her mother, with a teenage Watson already travelling around the world to compete in the junior circuit, left her job to accompany her daughter full-time.
“Lots of times I feel quite lonely,” she said in 2012 of life on the tour. “I just want to go home and see everybody, because I hardly get to see my friends and family during the season. It’s really tough, always living out of a suitcase or in a hotel.”
Part of the problem, she suggested, was that as a warm and fun-loving young woman who loves posting silly photos to her Instagram feed, she found it difficult to make friends and was often snubbed by the more aloof players on the tour.
“I don’t really fit in,” she said. “I couldn’t be mean and not talk to people if I tried … But some of the girls have to be that way. In their minds, they are not playing a friend, they’re playing an opponent. That’s the job. It’s difficult, though.”
Retweet if @HeatherWatson92 just made you feel really effing proud! Favourite if she made you feel really effing proud!
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) July 3, 2015
But a solo life on the tennis circuit made her very self-sufficient – it was not until this year that she lifted a bar on her parents coming to Wimbledon to watch her performances, fearing their presence at SW19 could jinx her.
By 2013, as the British No1 and ranked 40 in the world after reaching the third round of the Australian Open, truly high-level success seemed there for the taking. But within months she had contracted glandular fever, which devastated her form for much of the following year and hugely dented her confidence, leading her to fear at times that her career could be over.
On top of her health problems, Watson spoke recently of the harassment she has received on social media, often from gamblers who have lost money because of her match results.
“I’ve had death threats,” she said. “I’ve had people threatening to kill me and kill my family, wishing that I get cancer and die a slow, painful death. Horrible words I couldn’t even think up in my head, to be that mean.”
She recently split from her boyfriend of two years, Phil Stephens, an investment banker who represented Britain in his teens – but beamed with delight on Wednesday when she told reporters at Wimbledon that she had recently bought her own property close to the All England Club, “a big goal of mine for a long, long time”.
A devoted dog-lover who stays with the same host family every year at Wimbledon, Watson remains, in many ways, a very normal young woman. But as she made plain in her post-match press conference, she has absolutely no time for the “didn’t she do well?” school of British ambition.
A reporter who suggested her heroic performance against Williams made it the greatest day of her career was given extremely short shrift: “No, I wouldn’t call losing the greatest day of my career.”
Had it flickered into her mind at any point that this was the woman whose image had been on her bedroom wall? “No. All I saw today was an opportunity for me to make it to the second week of a grand slam, which is one of my goals for this year.”
Asked about Andy Murray, who tweeted after the match that she had made him “feel really effing proud”, Watson allowed herself a small smile and said she hoped her country had been proud of her.
“It would have been a lot better if I [had] won. But I hope I fought for them and showed that, you know, it’s not going to be a walk in the park for anybody that plays me.”
