The five times champion was two breaks down in the third set to her 59th-ranked foe and at one stage stood two points from defeat before normal order was restored and Williams clinched a 6-2 4-6 7-5 win.
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Against each other on the grass at Wimbledon, Serena leads 3-2, with all three of her wins coming in finals.
At 12 she left home, alone, to board at Nick Bollettieri’s tennis academy in Florida; three years later her mother, with a teenage Watson already travelling around the world to compete in the junior circuit, left her job to accompany her daughter full-time. She walked slowly to the net, where the two sisters hugged.
“At deuce when I was serving for (the match), I would have smacked that backhand super-hard if I could go back, rather than just making it”.
When Serena hits top gear, her opponents have a habit of rolling over, but the Briton overcame the disappointment of being steamrollered in the first set to rebound in the second, forcing Williams into a string of wild shots. “She was playing really well, so at the end I was able to come through”. This is good news for the young Brit, to get praise like that from the top ladies player after a tough match is something to take away. “It’s tough for them playing”, Witt said.
Retweet if @HeatherWatson92 just made you feel really effing proud! But within months she had contracted glandular fever, which devastated her form for much of the following year and hugely dented her confidence, leading her to fear at times that her career could be over. “I’m practicing next to her every day and I’m in awe of how she’s doing”.
During a span of eight majors from the USA Open in 2001 to Wimbledon in 2003, Serena and Venus Williams participated in six all-in-the-family Grand Slam finals. “I mean, back then, we were definitely fun to watch”. I’m not really thinking about the match.
Twice in the next game she was two points from the match, but Williams took her chances and after engineering a 6-5 lead, the American claimed victory on her third match point to leave Watson reflecting on a positive display but gut-wrenching result. “No. All I saw today was an opportunity for me to make it to the second week of a grand slam, which is one of my goals for this year”.
Used to be that a match involving Miss Williams vs. Miss Williams, as they like to say at the All England Club, was a regular occurrence at the latter stages of the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world.
“It would have been a lot better if I [had] won”.
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Remember, they were taught to play tennis by their father in Compton, California, and went on to spend time at No. 1 in the rankings, collect a total of 27 Grand Slam singles titles and another 13 as a team in doubles.
