British teenager Heather Watson set for her biggest stage yet at Wimbledon

Jun 17 2010 Tennis by Brian Dick, Birmingham Post

It would be easy to pigeon-hole Heather Watson as just another giggly teenager, propelled beyond her years into the bright lights and harsh glare of national sporting publicity.

After all, she has to surgically remove herself away from whatever game it is she is playing on whatever apparatus she owns for our interview to start.

The affable 18-year-old informs me she’s addicted to Tinie Tempah and for the last few weeks has played it several hours a day.

I chuckle in feigned comprehension and mumble something about Tetris that must sound soooooo 90s.

The impression does not abate during the course of our conversation. Watson is quick to titter, even quicker to smile and positively lightning when it comes to saying something that sounds more Teenglish than English.

I suspect Tinie Tempah and me are not destined to have a long and fruitful relationship.

However, as easy as it would be to dismiss the Guernsey-born youngster as just the latest in a long list of Great Hopes of British tennis, attention to what she says and not how she says it is far more instructive.

Let’s not forget Watson is a youngster with enough about her to win the US Open junior title at Flushing Meadow last autumn. The previous Briton to do that was Andy Murray and he’s been to two Grand Slam finals and has been ranked number two in the world.

And what many people don’t know is the fact that at the age of 12 she decided she needed to leave her small Channel Island and head off to the fabled Nick Bollettieri academy to continue her tennis development – alone.

“When I was 11 I went for a week to see it. I knew I was not going to stay in Guernsey, I was going to go and really try with my tennis,” Watson recalls, still grinning and eyes a-twinkle.

“We went round places in England just looking at different tennis schools. Then we went to Florida. As soon as the week finished I went to my parents and said ‘This is where I want to go.’

"So at the beginning of the next school year, when I was 12 they put me on a plane, I went over there and lived on my own for three years.