By Ros Satar
- Johanna Konta & Heather Watson keep flying the flag, into the Monterrey quarter-finals
- Konta [4] def. Yanina Wickmayer 7-6(4) 7-6(4)
- Watson def. Polona Hercog 6-2 6-3
MONTERREY, MEXICO – The British successes continued with our top two players moving into the Abierto Monterrey Afirme quarter-finals.
Britwatch Tennis:
Johanna Konta [4] def. Yanina Wickmayer 7-6(4) 7-6(4)
Don’t let the straight sets win fool you – it took a little over two hours for the British No. 1 to continue her push in Monterrey against Wickmayer. The Belgian started the brighter, breaking Konta in the first game, and although the Brit brought up three break points, she couldn’t get past the aggressive baseliner.
She got her breakthrough in another hard fought game to bring things back to level pegging, as the pair battled their way through their first tie-break with momentum shifting one way, then the next. Wickmayer’s inconsistency eventually cost her as Konta stayed marginally more steady on her serve, taking her second set point and giving her a little breathing space.
There was certainly less drama in the second set, with just a brace of breaks in the middle before the pair arrived at their second tie-break. This time it took just a single mini-break at the start in Konta’s favour, as she kept her advantage throughout.
She will now face Wickmayer’s compatriot, Kirsten Flipkens in the quarter-final.
Heather Watson def. Polona Hercog 6-2 6-3
Wins build confidence and there was plenty of that in evidence at the start as Watson broke Hercog three times in a row, although the Slovenian did manage to get one back, and staved off two set points before Watson took the lead.
The second set looked to be a little more even at the start, although Watson once more started with a break, but this time Hercog dug deep to pull back the deficit as the pair traded a couple of breaks each, with Watson delivering a break to love to take the match.
Next up for the Guernsey girl is either second seed Caroline Wozniacki or Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who ended Konta’s Acapulco campaign last week.