Watson up against former world No. 2
HEATHER WATSON has been handed a daunting draw in the first round of the ladies’ singles at this year’s Wimbledon Championships, which gets under way on Monday.
The 31-year-old Sarnian will face the No. 10 seed Barbora Krejcikova, a previous French Open winner who as recently as February 2022 was ranked second in the world at singles, besides also being one of the sport’s top doubles players.
Aged 27, the Czech right-hander has been playing the best tennis of her life over the past two years, although grass is, on paper, her least favourite surface.
Having said that, her Wimbledon singles record of played seven matches, won five, lost two is not to be sniffed at, having reached the third and fourth rounds in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Currently ranked 149 in the world due to a combination of mixed form and the controversial decision not to award ranking points for last year’s Wimbledon following the All England Club’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players, Watson will have to be at her very best if she is to stand a chance of progressing to the second round at her favourite event in the tennis calendar.
Last year the Guernsey ace reached the second week of the championships in singles for the first time in her long career, losing in the fourth round to Jule Niemeier of Germany on Centre Court.
The decision not to award points for Wimbledon 2022 subsequently hit Watson hard, resulting in a ranking nosedive which she has struggled to recover from, hence her relying on a wild card to get into this year’s Championships.
Watson’s form on grass over the past three weeks during the Wimbledon warm-up events has been up and down. Although she reached the semi-finals of the Rothesay Open in Nottingham, she also exited the Rothesay International in Eastbourne in the first round on Tuesday, admitting afterwards that her opponent Camila Giorgi of Italy had been 'too strong’.
Regardless of the result against Barbora Krejcikova, Watson’s fans – and there are many of them – will still have the chance to see her playing on Wimbledon’s hallowed grass courts later in the championships when she competes in the doubles competitions.
Her best form at the All England Club has traditionally come in the mixed doubles, winning the 2016 title alongside Henri Kontinen of Finland and finishing runner-up 12 months later, again alongside Kontinen.
