Wimbledon Day 5 - Valiant Watson Pushes Williams To The Brink

What a week this has been for women’s sport in this country. On Thursday England’s footballers pushed World Champions Japan all the way at the Women’s World Cup, yesterday it was the turn of Guernsey’s Heather Watson to take on the best the world has to offer as five times Wimbledon champion Serena Williams came within points of crashing out.

Watson bids farewell to the crowd after a fearless performance 

In the end Centre Court stood as one, in appreciation for these two great athletes, the champion and the challenger whose roles had so nearly been reversed after over 2 hours of play.

Such were the slender margins; Watson served for the match when leading 5-4 in the deciding set, after she had fought back valiantly from a set behind. If it wasn’t for Williams’ never say die attitude and champions mentality this would have been a fairy-tale ending, as it turned out the American hadn’t fully read the script and triumphed 6-2 4-6 7-5 

Time and time again Watson scarpered and scurried over the slick and prestigious grass, as she chased down ball after ball while soaking Williams’ vicious attack. The Brit’s fluid movement and rock solid defence was impressive, but not as impressive as her extreme belief and commitment to the cause.

For a set Williams played at her untouchable best, as the American who currently holds 20 Grand Slam singles titles continues to hunt down Steffi Graf’s record of 22. The world number one is also attempting to win the year Grand Slam for the first time in her glittering career, she already has the Australian and French Open titles and Wimbledon remain in her sights.

In comparison Watson is still relatively new to the cauldron of Centre Court but boy did she make it bubble. In her post match interview Williams expressed that “aiming for the top 20 is probably setting her (Watson’s) ambition a bit low” This was evidence that she could more than trouble the best and that her game has come on leaps and bound from when she won just two games against the Pole Agnieszka Radwanska at the same stage here three years ago.

A one-sided first set was over in 25 minutes, as Williams spent little time in the lower gears of her game. But that wasn’t enough to throw Watson off course and after sticking with the top seed in the second she seized her opportunity with both hands.  

In the fifth game of the second set Watson broke the Williams serve for the first time in the match and even though the American broke straight back the Centre Court crowd now had something to get their teeth into.

When trailing 4-3 Watson pulled off the unthinkable, reeling off six games in a row to level the match before taking a 3-0 lead in the third. Williams searched for answers as Watson’s reliable and steady game forced the world number one into some uncharacteristic errors from the back of the court.

But with the mark of a champion she found a way to turn things around and will now face her sister Venus in round four. For Watson this was the day when she showed the very top is not too far away, surely the best is still yet to come.

Earlier in the day both Maria Sharapova and 6^th seed Lucie Safarova had booked their places in the fourth round, while in the men’s draw there were straight set victories for Novak Djokovic, Stanislas Wawrinka and Richard Gasquet who defeated Grigror Dimitrov. There was also an entertaining match on court two as the Australian agitator Nick Kyrgios beat 7^th seed Milos Raonic in four sets.