Week 9 - WTA International (227K) - Monterrey, Mexico Hard

savva0122 · Intermediate Club Player

RE: Week 9 - WTA International (227K) - Monterrey, Mexico Hard

Spectator · All-time great

Fabulous win for Ms Watson. Love the way she can pull brilliant weeks out of the bag to remind us just how good she can be.

-- Edited by Spectator on Saturday 5th of March 2016 08:42:08 AM

Jan · Hall of fame

Fantastic win from Heather!

Sad that Johanna couldn't get the win too.
How great to have all this going on in British tennis (including Naomi in that)!

Sim · County player

Echo all the congratulations for Hev, and thanks for the commentary Kundalini. wink

Hev's run here should help her with getting a new coach.

With the wc for IW at least she will get a rest even if she reaches the final.

tony_orient · ATP qualifying

Great with for Heather - just confirms that all she was lacking was a bit of confidence and a couple of wins here turned that around. Beating a big name player like Woznacki will boost her confidence even further.

It seems over the past year or so Heather has become a different player once she gets past the opening round of a tournament.

Also takes a lot of the pressure off of Indian Wells with top 100 secure for a while.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Great win for Hev. Hope she can go all the way now and win her 3rd title.

Shame for JoKo but she got a couple of wins. Hopefully she will kick on in Indian Wells and Miami.

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Great win by Hev. I guess is Flipkens was playing a blinder then what can you do?

Thanks to kundalini for the commentry.

I hope Jo gets her full gusto back as IW. It's still to be seen whether she's better on that bigger stage. As someone said above, it's also that period of adjusting to being a seed at the lower WTA events (never thought I'd be saying that about a GB woman!)

In any case I'm exited about Hev and Naomi too. I hope Laura gets better, and then we have Katie to look forward to in the future

philwrig · Hall of fame

Hev's improved form must be all down to the pep talk I had with her at FedCup ;) The game was always there this year, in fact I felt she look much more energised this year than last, maybe the GF is now completely out of her system. All she was lacking was a bit of confidence in the tough moments in matches, and winning the R1 match the way she did looks like its set her up for a great week. Woz is a shadow of her former self, but even taking that into account its a massive win. Solid week for Jo, but she can't churn out top 20 form every week, well at least not yet.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Not the way round I expected the results to be, but really pleased for Heather. As for Jo it will probably take a little while to feel comfortable as a regular top 30 player but I'm sure it will come. Pity she didn't take her chances in the first set and it sounds like Flipkens hit one of her 'in the zone' periods in the 3rd.

indiana · Tennis legend

philwrig wrote:
Hev's improved form must be all down to the pep talk I had with her at FedCup ;) The game was always there this year, in fact I felt she look much more energised this year than last, maybe the GF is now completely out of her system. All she was lacking was a bit of confidence in the tough moments in matches, and winning the R1 match the way she did looks like its set her up for a great week. Woz is a shadow of her former self, but even taking that into account its a massive win. Solid week for Jo, but she can't churn out top 20 form every week, well at least not yet.

Thanks Phil for that

Talk of Heather having a horrible year was argued against even before this week. She's been competitive all year, but ( and it was fair to be concerned at this ) not got across the line in some matches, even then against pretty good players. As you suggest, that R1 win does seem to have really got her going.

insomniacfolder · Challenger level

So, here's the photo WTA used to headline their homepage banner for Heather's win - it's a great picture, quintessentially happy Hev.
0,,12781~14391244,00.jpg

Spoiler

But, hang on you might think, what's that German flag doing there? Well, maybe Hev has German fans, not so unreasonable.

Oh, hang on even more, we've seen the coverage from Monterrey, the courts and court surrounds aren't blue this year, they're green, to match the sponsors branding.
In fact, they look like this:

Spoiler: What's going on?
The top picture in fact comes from Heather's win against Lisicki in the Hopman Cup this year!

Spoiler

OK, must be an innocent error.
So, click in to the story, and you get this picture:

Spoiler

Whaaat!?!
That one is from the Fed Cup match in Eilat against Chanel Simmonds.

Spoiler: WTA have used two pictures, neither of which shows the match in question.
Looking in to it cursorily, it seems they do this all the time. Which may well be why they caption their images just as 'Heather Watson', not 'Heather Watson plays a forehand in her victory over Caroline Wozniacki at the Monterrey Open 2016'.

A picture can paint a thousand words; at very least, with the WTA, the story it's telling just might not be the one you think it is though!

WavenNarsam · Lower Club Player

I watched the match and it was easily the best I have seen Heather play since the Wimbledon match with Serena Williams. Very solid from the baseline and clever with her shot selections. Serve was also firing very well which has been her undoing several times this season. Goes to show what she is capable of when all aspects of her game are working.

indiana · Tennis legend

First through to the final is Kirsten Flipkens, beating Annett Kontaveit 7-6(6) 6-4 ( she was 5-1* up in the second set so ended up tighter than it was looking )

And coming soon .... it's Heather Watson !

insomniacfolder · Challenger level

Hev looking for the lesser seen back-to-back Caro bashing double!

Jan · Hall of fame

Hev gets the early break 3-1*