{"id":48476,"date":"2025-08-06T18:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T18:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/48476\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T18:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T18:16:11","slug":"former-british-number-one-loses-in-first-round-of-cincinnati-open-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/48476\/","title":{"rendered":"Former British number one\u00a0loses\u00a0in first round of Cincinnati Open qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The life of a professional tennis player is littered with peaks and troughs.<\/p>\n<p>One minute, a player is on top of the world, like Victoria Mboko was recently after <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/lindsay-davenport-pinpoints-the-only-problem-she-had-with-victoria-mboko-before-watching-her-at-the-canadian-open\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defeating Coco Gauff at the Canadian Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, players can go through periods of poor form or tough results, like Jannik Sinner did when <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/carlos-alcaraz-reveals-the-key-to-his-french-open-final-victory-over-jannik-sinner\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">losing the French Open final to Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2220373331-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Jannik Sinner of Italy looks dejected before the trophy ceremony following his defeat to Carlos Alcaraz of Spain in the Men\u2019s Singles Final match on Day Fifteen of the 2025 French Open at Roland Garros on June 08, 2025 in Paris, France.\" class=\"wp-image-309096\" \/>Photo by Franco Arland\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>One player, a former British number one, was competing in the Cincinnati Open qualifying this week, hoping to qualify for the main draw and have a shot against some of the best players the WTA Tour has to offer.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for this player, they fell at the first hurdle.<\/p>\n<p>Heather Watson loses in the first round of Cincinnati Open qualifying<\/p>\n<p>Heather Watson, a product of the Nick Bollitieri Academy in Florida, was hoping to make an impact at this year\u2019s Cincinnati Open.<\/p>\n<p>However, she faced 13th seed Anastasia Vladimirovna Zakharova in the first round. The former British number one lost to the Russian player 2-6 3-6.<\/p>\n<p>Watson, former world number 38, has struggled on the WTA Tour over the last two months. She has not won a WTA Tour singles match since the Eastbourne Open in June.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"677\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-1345218150-1024x677.jpg\" alt=\"Heather Watson of Great Britain shows her frustration against Sloane Stephens of the United States during their first round match on Day 3 of the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on October 06, 2021 in Indian Wells, California.\" class=\"wp-image-317409\" \/>Photo by Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The 33-year-old has put together a career to be proud of. However, at 33 years of age, her time may now be limited on the WTA Tour.<\/p>\n<p>Watson has seen her ranking slip to 159 in the world, meaning she will most likely be forced to enter the qualifying rounds for the US Open.<\/p>\n<p>A decade ago, Heather Watson was at the peak of her powers, beating the likes of Agnieszka Radwanska at the 2015 Indian Wells tournament. Just one year later, she claimed her maiden Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n<p>Heather Watson\u2019s Wimbledon title<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, Heather Watson teamed up with Henri Kontinen in the <a href=\"https:\/\/tennishead.net\/tag\/wimbledon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wimbledon<\/a> Mixed Doubles event.<\/p>\n<p>The pair were fortunate to receive walkovers in the first two rounds, avoiding second seeds Bruno Soares and Elena Vesnina.<\/p>\n<p>Watson and Kontinen took full advantage, only dropping one set for the rest of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>RoundResultOneW\/O against Denis Kudla and Louisa ChiricoTwoW\/O against Bruno Soares and Elena VesninaThreebt Leander Paes and Martina Hingis 3-6 6-3 6-2Quarter-finalsbt Scott Lipsky and Alla Kudryavtseva 6-3 6-2Semi-finalsbt Oliver Marach and Jelena Ostapenko 7-6 6-3Finalbt Robert Farah and Anna-Lena Gronefeld <br \/>7-6 6-4Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen\u2019s 2016 Wimbledon Mixed Doubles Campaign\u2026<\/p>\n<p>After defeating two legends, Leander Paes and Martina Hingis, Watson and Kontinen comfortably defeated American-Russian duo Scott Lipsky and Alla Kudryavtseva in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p>They then defeated future French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko and her partner Oliver Marach in the semi-final, before coming through a tight contest in the final against Robert Farah and Anna-Lena Gronefeld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The life of a professional tennis player is littered with peaks and troughs. One minute, a player is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[13301,27058,101,118,56,54,55,7512],"class_list":["post-48476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-cincinnati-open","tag-heather-watson","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wta-tennis-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}