In 2008, Laura Robson stormed through to clinch the Wimbledon Girls title at the age of 14 in front of a capacity crowd on Court 1. Almost overnight she became the darling of British tennis, as tennis legends like Martina Navratilova backed her for greatness. A little over a year later, Heather Watson would match Robson’s Wimbledon victory, demolishing all tournament favourites en-route to victory at the Girls US Open. Even after that impressive tournament Watson remained in the shadow of her younger compatriot.
Today, however, it is a completely different story. While the last 12 months have seen Robson struggle with various injuries while suffering a number of disappointing losses, Watson has flown up the rankings, from 588 at the beginning of 2010 to a top 100 ranking for the first time just this week.
Watson’s results are a testament to how hard she’s worked and how far she has traveled in this period. Last year’s low-profile routine loss to the unheralded Alla Kudryavtseva in Birmingham pales in comparison to this year. Heather Watson seemingly owns the place, with life-sized cut outs littered around the venue, it’s impossible to walk two steps without staring right into the face of the 19 year-old on all of the billboards.
After her straight sets victory over fifteenth seeded Chanelle Scheepers, she sat down to speak to the press. A highlight was when she was asked to talk about her experience in the Xperia Hot Shots Online reality program. Her face immediately lit up as she recalled her recent encounter with RnB crooner, Trey Songz who she is “in love with”. She was met with quizzical stares from most of the reporters, and so Watson pretended to lose her patience, desperately pleading with the crowd; “He’s a singer; please tell me you know him?!”
Her bubbly and fun personality off-court is a complete contrast to her gritty and determined demeanour on court. Undoubtedly lacking the firepower and weight of shot of many of her other compatriots, Watson used her famed fighting spirit and brilliant athleticism to full effect against the higher-ranked Scheepers, charging around the court to retrieve balls while smartly manipulating the angles and placing the ball into tough positions for the South African. After a hiccup while serving for the match at 5-4, she immediately recovered, breaking her opponent back before serving out the match with ease.
In the second round, she will face off against either Elena Gallovits-Hall or Misaki Doi, with an intriguing potential match up with one of this season’s most in form players, Peng Shuai, in the third round. The pair met at the beginning of 2011 in Auckland, with Peng scraping through after a tight and entertaining two-setter. Should they meet again, the Birmingham organizers will undoubtedly be hoping for a different outcome for their cover girl. And so will Heather Watson.
Tumaini Carayol is a contributing writer at On The Baseline, and writes about professional tennis at his site Foot Fault.
Yeah, I also dont understand why Watson got so little attention in comparison with all the hype that followed Robson´s success. Not even now when she is in top 100.