Australian Open tennis 2021 - Heather Watson into second round with impressive victory over Pliskova

Updated 09/02/2021 at 10:23 GMT

Heather Watson is into the second round of the Australian Open. The 2021 Australian Open is live on Eurosport. Watch every match live and ad-free on the Eurosport app and eurosport.co.uk. You can download the Eurosport app for iOS and Android now. The opening Grand Slam of the season in Melbourne runs from February 8 until February 21.

Heather Watson

Image credit: Getty Images

Britain's Heather Watson is into the second round of the Australian Open after an impressive 7-6(4) 7-6(3) win over Kristyna Pliskova.

Having gone through hard quarantine and losing eight out of her last nine matches on tour, the 28-year-old is through and will face either Anett Kontaveit or Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

Watson was playing some of her best tennis in a repeat of last year's first round contest and took Pliskova to a first-set tie-break.

ATP Marseille

Murray suffers fourth successive loss of 2024 in straight-sets defeat to Machac

06/02/2024 at 18:58

She won the breaker 7-4 as the Czech hit into the net to put the Brit ahead after 48 minutes of action on Court 10.

The second set looked to be Pliskova's when she was on the brink of a 4-1 lead, but she produced a poor backhand into the net to put the set back on serve at 3-2.

Both player continued to trade blows from the baseline, but it would have to be decided again by another tense tie-break which Watson emerged victorious from as she won the last four points.