US Open 2020: Heather Watson confident of upsetting Johanna Konta as Britons collide in first round

For a player who admits that she found this year’s coronavirus shutdown especially hard, Heather Watson might have been forgiven for heaving a sigh of disappointment on hearing the draw for the first round of the US Open, which began in New York on Monday. The British No 2 has yet to win a match since the resumption and will need to upset the odds if she is to record her first competitive victory for six months when she goes on court on Tuesday. Her opponent will be the world No 13, Johanna Konta, who is the only other Briton in the 128-strong field.

“I don’t really find it awkward,” Watson insisted when asked about the prospect of facing someone she knows so well. “I’ve been on the tour for a lot of years now so I feel like I know a lot of girls very well. We know each other’s games very well. We know each other well as people. It doesn’t really change anything.”

Watson has the advantage of having watched Konta play in last week’s tournament at Flushing Meadows, though it served only to demonstrate how well her Fed Cup colleague is playing. Konta, quickly finding her stride under her new coach Thomas Hogstedt, reached the semi-finals, just a fortnight after a health scare when she suffered heart palpitations, for the second time this year, in her first comeback tournament in Kentucky.

The shutdown could not have come at a worse time for Watson, who had just won the tournament in Acapulco to claim her first title for four years. Having also reached the semi-finals in Hobart and won a match at the Australian Open, Watson had climbed from No 102 in the world rankings to No 49 in the first two months of the year.

“At the start of the lockdown I felt sorry for myself.,” Watson admitted. “Those last six months before the lockdown happened were the best six months I’d had in the last few years. I wasn’t in a good place [before then]. I wasn’t happy on the court, off the court, just in general. Then I was really finding my feet and won Acapulco. I was really confident. I was absolutely loving being on the court. It was the most I’ve ever enjoyed tennis.”

She added: “We were locked down for so long in the UK. There was nothing to do. I was stuck in my apartment. Don’t get me wrong, I love being at home and with my family. I love that aspect of it. But I’m also a very outgoing, busy person and I don’t like being bored. I just don’t do well with it. I think it will just take time to find my feet again.”

Watson and Konta have met three times on the tour, the latter winning on each occasion. Konta says that of the home players Watson is “one of the girls I am closer to” and agrees that “there is always going to be an added element because it’s two Brits playing each other”.

However, the British No 1 insists she will approach the match like any other. “We are both going to do the best that we can and whoever does best on the day will make it to the second round,” Konta said. “It will be a nice opportunity to play each other again.”

Konta recruited Hogstedt because her previous coach, Dimitri Zavialoff, had been unable to travel so much for family reasons. Zavialoff had overseen an upturn in Konta’s fortunes as she reached the quarter-finals or better in three of last year’s four Grand Slam tournaments.

The early signs under Hogstedt, who has previously coached Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep, Caroline Wozniacki and Li Na, have been promising as Konta has quickly found her big-hitting game. “It’s still very early days,” Konta stressed. “I’m enjoying that progress of just getting to know each other for now.”

The last encounter between Konta and Watson was in front of an enthusiastic home crowd at Nottingham two summers ago, but there will be a very different atmosphere when they meet at Flushing Meadows, where there are no spectators for safety reasons.

“I definitely miss the fans,” Konta said. “Whether they are for me or against me, I think in professional sport and especially sports in arenas like we have for tennis, I miss fans. I absolutely love playing for people. I absolutely love when people come and enjoy a performance that myself and my opponent are able to put on for them.”

There were no spectators either at this summer’s Battle of the Brits team competition at Roehampton, where Watson played and won all 10 of her matches while Konta played only three times. Some players were reported to have felt that Konta had not entered the spirit of the event and a life-sized cardboard cut-out of her was displayed on the final day, which she did not attend.

Konta, however, said that she had made it clear from the start to Jamie Murray, who organised the event, that she could not commit to any more matches because of her training schedule. Asked about the cardboard cut-out incident, Konta said: “I kind of think it reflects more on them than me.”