Rain delay provides Watson little respite amid Na's baseline deluge

Sports Writer

Tuesday 28 August 2012

IN the end, the torrential downpour provided only a stay of execution for Heather Watson.

Johanna Konta, the newly acquired Brit, can call on a former world No.1 for some friendly advice at Flushing Meadows this week. Picture: Getty Images

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Stewart Fisher

The 20-year-old from Guernsey loves her visits to Flushing Meadows. She won the 2009 Junior US Open, then extended Maria Sharapova to three sets here 12 months ago. But yesterday out on Court No.17 she encountered the wrong opponent at the wrong time. Li Na, the former French Open winner, has reached the final in each of the last two WTA events in Montreal and Cincinnati. Watson is now ranked 71 and the authentic British No.1 but the Channel Islander was chewed up and spat out in just one hour 21 minutes of play.

While Judy Murray, the Fed Cup captain, watched on, the only thing that prolonged the match was the intervention of the elements. It felt like a reprieve of sorts when the umbrellas went up as Watson prepared to serve to stay in the match at 2-6, 3-5 but after a couple of hours break her existence in this competition was to last just a handful of points longer. The dominant image of the day was the Channel Islander scurrying around for cover as Li Na's booming shots from baseline rained down on her.There was no disgrace here for Watson against the No.9 seed from Hunan province and she was upbeat about it afterwards. "I'm happy with how I played," she said, "I feel I played better than I did last year against Maria. I don't think it was Maria's best match last year but today Li Na was on another level. She was hitting winners off balls I wouldn't think you could hit winners off, hitting lots of lines, she had a really high first-serve percentage and she just played better tennis. She played like a grand-slam champion."Li's run co-incides with the employment of Carlos Rodriguez, the former coach of Justine Henin, and the dispensing with the services of her last coach, her husband. "After I change the coach, I didn't say my husband didn't do a good job," Li said. "But for both sometimes it's too much, you know?"Watson is just one quarter of the British women's challenge at this year's US Open which has a distinctly exotic feel to it. Johanna Konta, born in Sydney to Hungarian parents, won her way through qualifying to take her place in the first round alongside Laura Robson, Watson and Anne Keothavong. Konta, who edged past China's Zhang Shuai in the final round of qualifying to book her meeting with the world No.59 Timea Babos today, is an intriguing work in progress. A graduate of the same Sanchez-Casal academy in Barcelona where Andy Murray spent his formative years, the 21-year-old now has Hungarian, Australian and British passports. She only received British Citizenship in May but has lived in Eastbourne for seven years and trains at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton. An aggressive baseliner and good athlete, she has just broken into the top 200 but could go much higher. Konta even has a celebrity pal to call on, having struck up a friendship with Venus Williams when practising with her at the NTC earlier this summer. Indeed, the former US Open champion was cheering her on in qualifying. "Venus is lovely," Konta has said. "I grew up watching her. It was so nice of her to come to watch. I got my star-struckness out of the way when I hit with her, so she's more of a friendly face now." One Australian-born player who plays for the country of her birth is the reigning US Open champion Sam Stosur, who rattled through the opening of her defence of her title against Croatia's Petra Martic. Twelve months ago, the native of Brisbane became the first Australian woman since Evonne Goolagong Cawley in 1980 to win a Grand Slam at this venue, and for a while she seemed reluctant to afford her opponent a single point. She led by 4-0, 40-0 before she let Martic off the hook with a double fault, ending memories of a repeat of Yaroslava Shvedova's achievement against Sara Errani at Wimbledon this year. "I knew I hadn't missed a point and the match had been going pretty quick and obviously in my favour," said Stosur, who won 6-1 6-1. "It did pop into my head for a split second."

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Rain delay provides Watson little respite amid Na's baseline deluge

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