Thursday, March 4, 2010

Watson keeps going in Hammond

Qualifier Heather Watson, who was on the court for a very long time yesterday in her first round match against former world number 7 Nicole Vaidisova (her 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 score included one 11-9 tiebreak), returned today and took her second round match 6-4, 6-4. Watson played 5th seed Monique Adamczak at the 24k challenger in Hammond, Louisiana. I had forgotten that Adamczak plays with a one-handed backhand, and it was nice to see two such backhands in two consecutive matches.

Adamczak used her backhand well, too, occasionally confounding Watson by setting up drive volleys with it, or by hitting outright winners. Watson, however, remained patient, and took advantage when the unforced errors started coming off of her opponent's racquet.

I also saw a bit of the match between 2nd seed Darya Kustova and Zhou Yi-Miao, which Zhou won, 7-6, 5-7, 6-0. Zhou's next opponent will be 6th seed Karumi Nara. Watson will play Zhang Shuai.

The tournament's top seed, Anastasiya Yakimova, was upset in the second round by the unseeded Xu Yi-Fan.

Naomi Broady and Watson are playing doubles together and have reached the semifinals.

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