Heather's winner will face the 2nd seed, Qiang Wang. Bondarenko, who she faces in the first round, is 33 now and unranked; achieved her CH 29 all of 10 years ago now.
Good draw for Harriet.
R32: Harriet DART (GBR) 133 vs QUALIFIER
R32: Heather WATSON (GBR) 125 vs Kateryna BONDARENKO (UKR) UNR (CH:29 Oct 09)
Heather's winner will face the 2nd seed, Qiang Wang. Bondarenko, who she faces in the first round, is 33 now and unranked; achieved her CH 29 all of 10 years ago now. Good draw for Harriet.
R32: Harriet DART (GBR) 133 vs QUALIFIER R32: Heather WATSON (GBR) 125 vs Kateryna BONDARENKO (UKR) UNR (CH:29 Oct 09)
Just to say, while it is very likely it will be Qiang waiting for the Watson winner, it is Qiang vs a qualifier in R1, rather than a bye.
Nao Hibino is still alive in quals who just won a WTA title the other week and as a result is now in the top 100 (at 92), but it came too late to avoid playing quals here. If she qualifies (still 2 rouns to go) then you'd still expect Qiang to win should they meet, but in Harriet's case, she'd obviously be playing a higher ranked player if they were paired together.
Harriet could also have a US Open rematch with Wang Xiyu, who is in line to face fellow 18 year old Wang Xinyu in the FQR.
So here we go, last 4 forecast from tennis abstract for tianjin. In essence, Bondarenko is 2:1 favourite to beat Heather , fair enough. But qualifier 3 (whoever it may be) is 2:1 favourite to beat Harriet? We dont know who it is! Surely Harriet is better than that, ie she will lose to a qualifier whoever it is??
I guess it's a kind of weighted average, looking at the possible qualifier opponents for Harriet. I see that they don't give a huge deal for Harriet or Heather's ultimate title chances, at 0.1% each!
The aforementioned top 100 Hibino lost in quals, as well as a couple of other seeds, so it's just both teenage Wangs (who face each other) and Nara in the top 200 who have made the FQR, so that's got to be more in Harriet's favour.
TA may have Bondarenko a 66% chance to beat Heather, but Heather is the 1/3 favourite at the bookies. Bondarenko is using her PR after coming back from another bout of maternity leave, and lost 2 and 2 against Minnen in Tashkent in her first match back in over a year. Watson also beat her on the Nurmeburg clay last year (which ended a trademark very long Hev losing streak), so I'd be pretty disappointed if Heather didn't win that one - she's not going to be a big (betting) favourite in many WTA main draw matches these days, so has got to make the most of this.