In what turned out to be the best match of the women’s tournament so far, American Jennifer Brady saved five match points to defeat Brit Heather Watson 2-6, 7-6 (7-3), 10-8 to advance to a third round match with Elena Vesnina.
Brady is in her firs-ever Grand Slam main draw and had to rally from a set down in the final round of qualifying against fellow American Taylor Townsend. Ranked 116th, she beat lucky loser Maryna Zanevska to advance to this matchup with the Brit.
Brady was understandably nervous at the beginning of the match and Watson capitalized with a break to love. After the American broke back, Watson again broke to love for a 2-1 lead. The shaky play by Brady continued as she lost serve for a third straight time. Watson would see out the set 6-2 in 28 minutes to take an expected one set lead.
The second set began as more of the same as another Brady forehand flew out. Now in commanding position, Watson suffered an unexpected lapse, getting broken back and the match was on a knife’s edge from that point forward.
At 4-4, Watson broke for the fifth time in the match with a driving forehand winner to put her ahead 5-4. She served for the match but, again, she faltered on her own serve, giving the break straight back, this time a double fault drawing Brady level.
Brady began the tie-break confidently with an ace and then stormed out to a 5-1 lead after Watson missed a forehand volley. With the match suddenly having taken a turn, Brady converted on her second set point to take the tiebreaker 7-3 and force a deciding set seemingly out of nowhere.
It appeared Watson would again be on the front foot and she turned up the pressure at 2-1 in the third set, leading 15-40 and again with five more break point chances in a lengthy fifth game, which she led 0-40 but she failed to convert on any of those seven opportunities.
There was another break point, her ninth of the set, at 4-3 but Brady managed to get out of trouble again. The heat was then on Watson in the 11th game turn to defend as the American had three chances to break and serve for the match. Watson, however, held to lead 6-5.
Brady drove a forehand long to give Watson two match point chancess but she surrendered both, the second with a limp forehand into the net. Another match point came and went before the American fired an ace to hold for 6-6.
At 8-7, Watson again had opportunities to close out the match, but strong serving kept Brady alive and it was now 8-8. All those missed chances eventually caught up to Watson and she double faulted to put Brady ahead 9-8 and now the qualifier would serve for the match.
She moved ahead 40-0 and set up three match points and while Watson saved two, she could not rescue a third as Brady slapped away a volley to seal her place in the third round, an unlikely story when this fortnight began.
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