Very well done to Heather for qualifying - shame the points aren't as good as her performances merit. Wozniak was a semi-finalist here last year (amusingly losing to Wozniacki) so will provide a stern test and good experience.

Anne's record here is dreadful, so in that context keeping Hantuchova engaged for so long can be considered as a better performance than average.

And she's more than capable of beating Wozniak from what I saw of her today. Jovanovski is better than her.

According to her post match press conference Heather was struggling slightly with a side strain during the second set and will have treatment on it before her next match. She also said her main goal for this year is to get inside the top 200.

Here are my "reports" of both matches


Heather Watson vs. Bojana Jovanovski

Jovanovski did not tank.

The first set was much closer than the scoreline suggests. Heather came out pushing the ball into the center of the court and rolling her second serve in at around 70mph which Bojana brutally punshed with some huge winners. From *0-1 0-30 Heather began to put a lot more on her second serve and played much more aggressively. The rallies raged on as Bojana was determined to finish the points quickly and Heather tried to prolong them and put the ball in tough positions for Bojana. The difference between the two was that Heather seemed to come up with clutch winners while at full stretch on the big points. This included a running forehand dropshot winner while she was in the doubles lines. Heather served well in the final game of set 1 and took the set with the loss of only one game.

Then the craziness began. Heather had about 6 game points outside of the one game she won in the second set. On three of them she shanked forehands into the crowd, on two she hit routine backhands into the net and on the remaining one she hit a double fault. Bojana did very well though, she added a lot more topspin onto her shots and her shot selection was spot on. She hit some great returns in the final game and that set was hers.

The final set really showed why Heather has such a good record in third sets this year. As the umpire called "time" she jumped out of her chair and ran to the baseline in a Nadal-esque way before playing three stunning points in a row and eventually breaking to -15 with a backhand DTL as good as a winner. What was shocking is that from that moment Bojana decided to crush every single forehand as hard as possible and slice/dropshot every backhand. I dont know if she was injured (she didnt have an ice pack or bandage on after the match) or she just felt like doing it, but it was just so odd. She actually hit some good dropshots but Heather was too quick tand dealt with them accordingly. Bojana played like that for the rest of the set and as Heathers level rose, it became a straightforward walk in the park for Heather.

Aleksandra Wozniak vs Jill Craybas
I only saw a bit of this match. Wozniak was the aggressor here and that pathetic pushing we saw from her against Dementieva at the French Open was definitely gone. She served big and looked pretty good from the ground, though her stokes are still lacking the power and precision that I remember from last year at Eastbourne. Giantkillah Jill tried her hardest as always but she was just not good enough and didnt play too well even for her standards.

A funny thing was that Raymond and Stubbs were present at this match. I was standing right next to Stubbs and after every single point Craybas won, she was shouting something along the lines of Lets get this, Jill! or Thats right Jill, keep it deep!.

I'm still sticking to the fact Wozniak has decent recent form.
Third round FO where she nearly beat Dementieva.( saw some of this match quite impressed)
Second round Birmingham where Riske beat her, Riske made semis.
Qualified very easily this week.

As for her playing style, I thought I had read on TF that her playing style was similar to Wozniacki's, I stand corrected if that is not the case.

The worry for me is Heather's slight injury which may stiffen up overnight, other than that I expect Heather to make it a competitive match, but coming up short all the same.

Heather has received alot of positive press following her performance yesterday which is great to see. The more Heather and Laura can feed off each other and share the media spotlight and the pressure that provides the better both their chances of senior success are. If you could mix/match both players tennis styles you would have the perfect tennis player. I also see that Heather intends to remain stateside for the time being which seems a good idea.

Heather 4-0* ....

Heather 4-2*