Heather Watson vowed to use the pain of a difficult Wimbledon defeat to motivate her at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Watson’s match with Germany’s Annika Beck was due to start on Tuesday evening but rain meant it didn’t conclude until almost 48 hours later, following repeated stop start delays.
It was certainly a topsy turvy encounter with the British number two racing to the first set before losing the second without winning a game.
When play resumed on Thursday morning, Watson quickly dropped her serve and found herself 3-0 down in the decider. But she battled back impressively as neither player gave an inch.
She had three match points at 0-40 up on Beck’s serve at 10-9 but squandered them all, as the world number 43 – ranked 12 places above Watson – won 3-6, 6-0, 12-10 to reach the second round for the second time.
“That’s one of the biggest disappointments of my career, especially having match points and not being able to win. I always take losses badly but this is one of the worst,” said Watson.
“I packed my schedule so I could qualify for the Olympics, it was my priority for the entire season and while it might have cost me in other areas, I wouldn’t change it.
“To qualify I played through an injury during the clay court season and I played all the grass court tournaments and perhaps didn’t get the time to recover properly. I’ve played every week for a couple of months to make that Olympic team because it means so much to me.
“I’m thinking about my plans for the next few weeks and I will use this loss to motivate myself, I won’t be depressed for ages.
“I’ve got some doubles here and then I’ll have a rest and I’ll do a tournament or two before Rio.”
Watson reached the third round at the All England Club last year and took eventual champion Serena Williams the distance in a classic encounter. She will now look to reassess before she makes her second Olympic appearance, having reached second round at London 2012 before a defeat to Russia’s Maria Kirilenko.
“Life goes on, I need to reevaluate and see how I can improve on and off the court,” she added.
“I feel I’m a better player but my ranking doesn’t lie, I do believe I can do a lot better and it’s back to the drawing board. I get motivated quickly with losses and I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.
“It’s frustrating because I shouldn’t have even been in that situation. I have to give her credit but I don’t know what happened to me in the second set. I didn’t get beat, I made errors and let her into the match.”
