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Champion's Corner: Watson

Posted: Jan 01, 1970

Heather Watson won her third career title at the Abierto Monterrey Afirme, recovering from a set down to defeat Kirsten Flipkens, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

The 23-year-old was one of three Brits to reach WTA quarterfinals in Monterrey and the BMW Malaysian Open, joining Johanna Konta and Naomi Broady, respectively, making for the most successful week for British women since 1978 (Eastbourne).

A former US Open junior champion, Watson is likely best known by tennis fans as the hometown favorite who nearly ended World No.1 Serena Williams’ Calendar Year Grand Slam bid at last year’s Wimbledon Championships, pushing the American to three grueling sets.

Unveiling a more aggressive gameplan, the Brit overcame the heat and other adversities throughout the week to defeat the veteran Belgian, surviving a late surge to win her first title since last year’s 2015 Hobart International.

Earning a wildcard at the BNP Paribas Open before completing her winning week in Monterrey, Watson spoke with WTA Insider ahead of her trek towards the California desert about steady improvements and celebrating Mother’s Day with mother Michelle, a “tennis geek” who served as her on-court coach.

Insider: How does it feel to get that third title of yours on familiar and friendly territory in Mexico?
Watson: I’m just really pleased. The week started out kind of tough. When I got my bag off the plane, it was broken so I had it safety-pinned together this whole week. I put my laundry in the first day and lost all my clothes, so I was without half of my clothes. In my first match, I was almost full-body cramping in that epic match against Doi. Being here now, I’m just so pleased with how I stuck with it and tried my best.

Insider: You’d come in with two tough three-set losses in your last couple of events. With all of that happening, with the bags and the laundry, how hard was it to stay positive and to plug away down there?
Watson: I’d lost really close matches to some really tough players, but I didn’t let that bother me. They were all close matches, and I was in them all, so I just had to look at it from that point of view and just be positive about it. That’s what I kept doing.

Insider: It seems quite obvious this year that you’ve stepped up your game quite a bit. Can you talk about the work you’ve been doing in the off-season and some of the adjustments you’ve been making to your game?
Watson: I had a shorter off-season this year because I went to India to play some league tennis, so I only had an off-season for about four weeks. Usually I do about six weeks. Doing this way, I actually preferred doing a shorter but more intense off-season and I just felt fitter than I’ve ever been in January. With my game, I’m always working on being more aggressive; I think in important matches like today, it comes out because I know I need to do that to win otherwise the other player is going to step up first. I always force myself to do it in these important matches but I need to do it more often so it becomes a habit.

Insider: What does being aggressive mean to you and what’s the most challenging thing about that? What’s the biggest key to help keep you in that aggressive mindset when you play?
Watson: I feel like my serve is always pretty aggressive, so I don’t even think about that. My baseline game and trying to step into the court, take the initiative, go down the line first, come into the net. Just go for the winner first, basically, and not just hope for the mistake.

Insider: Does it come down to decision-making? Knowing where that hole is where you can gun for the shot and when not to?
Watson: It’s basically a mindset. I can do it, I can play aggressive tennis, I can play defensive tennis. It’s just making sure my mind is in the right place.

Insider: You aren’t the only player to say they really enjoyed a shorter off-season and playing league events, and they felt more in mid-season form. Is that kind of how you felt when you started the season?
Watson: Because it was shorter and more intense, I was more raring to go, and I just felt so fit. I feel like if the off-season is too long, you can almost exhaust yourself before the season’s even begun. I didn’t do that on purpose this year, but doing it that way makes me want to do it more like that in the future.

Insider: So many players will say that they don’t really know where their game is for the first couple of matches, but there’s always that one match where it triggers something in your brain where you think, “I can win this tournament.” Did you have a moment like that?
Watson: No I didn’t. I literally just thought, ‘I want to win one match here.’ That was my mindset coming in. I just wanted to win that first match, and I killed myself on court and did everything I possibly could to come through that. Once I got myself through that, the second match felt right, and I’ve got another opportunity here. Let’s try and give everything for another match, and it just continued like that and I never thought further than that. I just tried to be as professional as I could, kept my routines healthy, did all my warm-ups and cool downs and did everything I could to be prepared for that next match.

Insider: What’s the story behind your mom acting as your coach this week?
Watson: I’d been with Judy Murray in Australia; she was very nice to help me out. I’d tried a few coaches but haven’t really found the right fit. I asked my mum to come along; she’d been with me when I was very young and playing little tournaments in the UK. She’s been with me throughout my whole career. To have her back was really nice; she’s been so supportive this week. She knows a lot about tennis; she’s a tennis geek! She does actually know her stuff. But she hadn’t seen me win a title yet, so to have her here and seeing it meant a lot to her. Also, it was Mother’s Day back home in England, so it makes it even more special.

Insider: That’s quite the coaching debut!
Watson: Right? I might need her around a little more often!

Insider: Are you without a formal coach? I didn’t know you’d stopped working with you previous coach.
Watson: Yes, for right now, but I’ve got some plans in the up and coming weeks, but nothing set in stone yet.

Insider: When did you split with your former coach, Diego Veronelli? I was going to say Dante, and I was like, ‘No, that’s not right. That’s Nishikori.’
Watson: But Dante Bottini used to be my coach, as well, at Bollettieri. We stopped at the beginning of the off-season.

Insider: Where were you during the off-season?
Watson: I did my off-season in Florida with Pat Harrison, who is Ryan and Christian Harrison’s dad. I did that with him in Florida.

Insider: Was that the first time your mom has ever done one of those on-court coaching timeouts?
Watson: She did it in my first match, but this is probably the first time she’s ever done it.

Insider: Was that surreal, having her come down?
Watson: It felt really normal; I didn’t think anything of it, but yeah, she was great.

Insider: How are you going to celebrate your title? I know you’ll have to get to Indian Wells fairly quickly, but what do you plan on doing this evening?
Watson: Oh gosh. Well, first of all: get some food in me, because I’m hungry. I struggled to eat today and yesterday. I’m actually still not even hungry, but I’ve got to eat something. Then I’m flying early to Indian Wells and I’ve got to make sure I recover, so I don’t think I’ll be celebrating yet. I’ll just wait until after, when I have a few days.

Insider: But it was still a great Mother’s Day present.
Watson: Yeah, I hope she enjoys it.

All photos courtesy of Abierto Monterrey Afirme.

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Insider Notebook: The Dust Bowl

Posted: Jan 01, 1970

– Day 1 winners: It was a picture perfect day at the BNP Paribas Open. The sun was out, the soccer field was hopping, and the first round of the tournament got underway.

Despite their respective rankings, the biggest upset of the day went to World No.36 Lesia Tsurenko, who beat an improving and in-form Timea Babos 7-5, 6-4. Tsurenko made the quarterfinals as a qualifier here last year, beating Andrea Petkovic, Alizé Cornet, and Eugenie Bouchard. But she had not won a match in 2016. There must be something in the desert air.

– More winners: Laura Siegemund (d. Begu), Yulia Putintseva (d. Peng), Kateryna Bondarenko (d. Van Uytvanck), Kurumi Nara (d. Pereira), Barbora Strycova (d. Sansnovich), Lucie Hradecka (d. Riske), Vania King (d. Townsend), Dominika Cibulkova (d. Siniakova), Heather Watson d. (Voskoboeva), Carina Witthoeft (d. Falconi), CoCo Vandeweghe (d. Bertens), Yaroslava Shvedova (d. Kr. Pliskova), Nicole Gibbs (d. Dulgheru), Johanna Larsson (d. Maria), Danka Kovinic (d. Crawford).

– Serena & Venus play on Friday: Venus Williams makes her much-anticipated return to the tournament on Friday during the day session, while Serena will headline the evening session.

– Angelique Kerber still riding the high: Kerber is still on cloud nine after her Australian Open triumph, but now it’s time to get back to work. The No.2 seed knows she’ll be playing with a big target on her back.

“It’s a new situation for me and I know every player who will play against me will give everything to beat me,” she said. “But this is also the situation you’re dreaming for, you’re working your whole life to be like, for me, No.2 at the moment. This is something you’re working for.”

Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber says she's still on cloud nine after the win. #BNPPO16 pic.twitter.com/N3HYtpeYf2

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) March 9, 2016

– Tricky conditions: The conditions at the BNP Paribas Open can be tricky. Not only does the ball fly in the dry desert air, but the gritty hard court plays relatively slowly. It can be a difficult combination for players to adjust to quickly.

“Here when you play in the morning sometimes it’s a little bit cold,” Carla Suárez Navarro explained. “When you play in the night it’s cold also. During the day it’s hot. It’s a little bit slower at night. During the day it flies a little bit. The court is not too fast. I really like that.”

“I feel like the surface is a little bit slow for me,” Petra Kvitova said. “I feel good. I’m healthy, that’s important.”

Welcome to All Access Hour at a Premier Mandatory, Belinda Bencic. A new experience. pic.twitter.com/d5bM4DBFRb

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) March 9, 2016

– Don’t have a cow, Belinda: This was Belinda Bencic’s first time going through All-Access Hour at a Premier Mandatory event and the attention and flurry of reporters was definitely a new experience.

“I think it’s a learning process,” she said, “For sure I had a couple of press conferences before [but] I never had this for many times, so it’s a little bit more attention off the court as well. But I enjoy it and it means you’re really Top 10, so I really do enjoy it.”

As for the perks of being a Top 10 player? “To be seeded all the time, you get practice courts, you get a better locker. You just have advantages in everything. You get better hotel rooms and gifts. It’s nice.”

So far her best gift has been “a huge fruit basket”. When reminded that Roger Federer was given a cow after winning a Slam, the 18-year-old was having none of it. “I don’t want a cow,” Bencic said with a laugh. “[I want] chocolate, like a huge basket!”

– Getting the band back together: Suárez Navarro and Garbiñe Muguruza, runners up at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global last year, have teamed up again for doubles in Indian Wells. “We play for the Olympics,” Suárez Navarro said. “It’s tough to play every week but this tournament we want to play together and play matches. The draw is really tough. We play Pliskova/Goerges. They made the semifinals in Melbourne. But just to play together again is a big step.”

– Carla psyches out the competition: The Spaniard, up to a career-high of No.6, has been working with a sports psychologist since last fall. She speaks to him every week and he’s on call for her whenever she needs to talk things through.

“I think that I needed it because if you want to be on top the things you have to improve or change are so little or so close,” she said. “You have to do that thing that is better for you. I start to work in October when I was in Asia, just because I was playing in August and I lost match by match and I didn’t find a solution. My coaches helped me a lot but these things are not easy. We think we need a professional person to help.”

– Top players react to Maria Sharapova’s announcement: A roundup of what the players are saying:

Serena Williams, who spoke ahead of the BNP Paribas Showdown on Tuesday (Serena will do her pre-tournament media obligations at 10:30am Thursday): “I think most people were happy she was upfront and very honest and showed a lot of courage to admit to what she had done and what she had neglected to look at in terms of the list at the end of the year,” Serena said.

“It’s just taking responsibility, which she admitted that she was willing to do and ready to do. Just hope for the best for everybody in that situation.”

Radwanska: “I was actually in the locker room here watching with all the other players what’s going on. We’re in shock, all of us. But well, nobody expected that for sure.”

Muguruza: “For sure it must be a very difficult situation for her. Well the good thing is that she acknowledged it and she’s facing it. That’s a good thing she’s doing and we’ll see how it goes.”

Kvitova: “I think this is an example we see that they are really trying to have a clean sport. I think the system is working. They are doing a good job in that.”

On Wednesday Sharapova posted a note to fans on Facebook, her first public comments since Monday’s press conference.

Petra Kvitova talks to the press at All Access Hour. Still coachless, here with a hitting partner. #BNPPO16 pic.twitter.com/au84F5bVUN

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) March 9, 2016

– Kvitova still coachless: Kvitova is in no rush to hire a coach after parting ways with David Kotyza in January. She’s here in Indian Wells with her hitting partner and enjoying the freedom to schedule and plan her own practices.

“I think it was a long time to be with David,” Kvitova said. “All the things we did was really working. I mean I have two Grand Slams and he did a great job. I think I still need to improve a lot of things. I think my aggressive game can still be more consistent. Trying to improve the serve and the first point in the rallies.”

– Put a ring on it: Kvitova will be taking the court with a new accessory: her engagement rink. Kvitova was playfully grilled by reporters about the details of how the proposal went down. It was quick, it happened at home, and yes, he bent down to one knee (“I don’t know if it was the left or right one”).

But she said the proposal wasn’t exactly a surprise. “I think I did expect it a bit for one or two days,” she said. “I just know him. I feel like he was more nervous than normal.”

– Let’s reminisce: I asked Kerber for the best experience she’s had since Melbourne, thinking she would highlight a high-profile celebrity event back home. Not Angie.

“I think for me, the best moment was when I got back home and I was sitting with my family and my friends, eating and thinking about my whole career, the last few years, more than 10 years right now, and that was for me the most special moment after I came back.”

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