100 up on WTA Tour for Watson
HEATHER WATSON has reached the milestone of 100 main-draw singles victories on the WTA Tour.
The Guernsey star can extend that today but has her work cut out against five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams.
The world No. 133’s confidence will be buoyed, though, by starting her American hard court season by beating last year’s junior No. 1, Claire Liu, on Tuesday to progress to the last 16 of the Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose, California.
Watson won the first set 6-4 before wild-card Liu raced into a 3-0 lead in the second and went on to take the set 6-3.
That set up a decider in which Watson mirrored Liu’s earlier example to lead 3-0 at one point before Liu clawed back to draw level at 4-4.
Watson played well from there to take a 6-4 victory after breaking Liu and consequently sealed the 100th singles match win of her career.
Few active British players can match this statistic, the one exception being current British No. 1 Johanna Konta, who blitzed Serena Williams 6-1, 6-0 in a surreal scalping in the first round of the same WTA Premier event.
Watson will now face off against the older of the Williams sisters for only the second time in her career.
Watson’s last clash with current World No. 14 Williams took place at the 2014 China Open, where the American won 6-3, 6-1 on hard court.
