Heather Watson out in Wuhan Open qualifying as wait for main-draw win goes on

Heather Watson is still looking for her first victory on this year’s Asia swing after losing here to Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur in the second round of qualifying for next week’s Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open. Watson, who had beaten China’s Xinyun Han in the first round, led 3-0 in the deciding set against Jabeur but lost 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.

Watson appeared to be turning around a disappointing year when she enjoyed a good grass-court season, but the 25-year-old Briton has struggled since losing to Victoria Azarenka in the third round at Wimbledon.

With her ranking not quite high enough to get her into the main draw of the biggest tournaments on the Women’s Tennis Association tour, the world No 78 has been having to fight her way through qualifying at most events.

Watson has not won a main-draw match since Wimbledon. Having lost to France’s Alize Cornet in the first round of the US Open she then lost to Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo in her opening main-draw match in Seoul earlier this week. From here she will head to the qualifying tournament for the China Open in Beijing and then to the Hong Kong Open, where she is at least in the main draw.

Jabeur was always likely to provide a tough test and the 23-year-old Tunisian won enough of the big points to secure her victory. Watson dropped serve six times and Jabeur four times as the Briton paid a big price for not taking enough of her chances.

In the first set Watson failed to convert any of her four break points while Jabeur had two and took both of them. However Watson fought back in the second set, which she took on her opponent’s fifth double fault, and broke again at the start of the third.

Watson led 3-1 in the decider only to lose the next four games in a row. The Briton saved one match point when she served at 3-5 and two more in the following game before Jabeur closed out victory after an hour and 39 minutes.

“The whole match was very up and down,” Watson said afterwards. “I made too many errors and I wasn’t really timing the ball well. I didn’t feel great on the court. But at the same time I feel fit and I feel like I’m really close to playing well. It’s just a case of really small margins. It’s tough and very annoying to lose a match like today's.”

Britain’s Johanna Konta is also looking for her first victory on the Asian swing after losing to the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova in the opening round of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.

Konta has a first-round bye here but faces a tricky second-round meeting with either Australia’s Ashleigh Barty or the American Catherine Bellis. Garbine Muguruza, the Wimbledon champion and world No 1, is the top seed in a very strong field, 17 of the world’s top 20 players having entered the event.