(Picture by Press Associoation, 0711161)
HEATHER WATSON will make her professional debut at the Jersey Open the week after next.
Due to the extraordinary large number of entries for the $25,000 tournament which starts on Monday 23 March, there were some doubts as to whether the 16-year-old Sarnian tennis star would qualify.
A number of players near the top 100 in the world, including Stephanie Foretz of France, Italian Maria-Elena Camerin and Great British hope Katie O’Brien, are all taking part.
However, the Channel Islands LTA development officer Hugh Raymond, who is organising the tournament, confirmed that Watson has been accepted for the qualifying event.
But she will have to wait until Tuesday to find whether she will receive a wild card into the main event.
This decision is being made by Carl Maes, the LTA’s head of women tennis.
Raymond is delighted that Watson will be playing.
‘The reason I’m cock-a-hoop about it is because I always hear that nothing comes out of small counties, but here we have Heather, who won gold at the Junior Commonwealth Games,’ he said.
‘It’s phenomenal and it’s great for Channel Islands sport.’
Another Sarnian tennis star who has had reasons to celebrate recently is Patrick Ogier.
The 21-year-old has been instrumental in seeing Nottingham University reach the strongest university tennis league in the country.
The dreadlocked right-hander’s team have been promoted from Midlands 1A Group and into Premier North, which contains some of the top outfits in the country.
‘It’s wonderful,’ said Ogier of the achievement.
‘We started playing the matches in the second week of the year, at the end of September, so it’s been a long time and it was so close the whole way.’
Besides finishing top of their league which contained Warwick, Leicester, Loughborough second team, Loughborough third team and Nottingham University second team, Ogier and his side then defeated two sides from Premier North – Stirling and Leeds Met seconds to secure the promotion.
Article posted on 14th March, 2009 - 9.30am
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