Heather Watson: The British tennis star playing the grand slam of her life at Wimbledon

There have been plenty of ups and downs in the Channel Islander’s career, so she is determined to enjoy her run at the All England Club, write Lawrence Ostlere and Chris Stevenson

Great Britain’s Heather Watson celebrates victory against Kaja Juvan on Friday (Zac Goodwin/PA) (PA Wire)

It took 12 years and 43 attempts, but on Friday Heather Watson finally reached the fourth round of a grand slam.

She would have been forgiven for thinking it would never happen. Watson has been largely treading water since her career-high singles ranking of 38 at the start of 2015 – barring a sole mixed-doubles triumph at Wimbledon in 2016 and another appearance in the final of the same tournament the following year – with a series of gallant defeats and near misses. In six of the past seven years she has won only one grand slam match all season; 26 times in her career she has entered a major and lost in the first round.

She came tantalisingly close in 2015 as she served for her third-round match against Serena Williams at Wimbledon, but fell to defeat, and there was another three-set loss to Victoria Azarenka two years later. Watson has never bemoaned the ups and downs she has faced in her career, but as time marched on her legacy was shaping into one that would be easy to place in that much-used sporting category of “unfulfilled promise”.