Australian Open 2018: Heather Watson crashes out to Yulia Putintseva in opening round

Australian Open 2018: Putintseva kept making her opponent play the extra ball before capitalising on her opponent’s regular mistakes

Heather Watson could not make it beyond the first round (Getty)

Heather Watson loves playing here at the Australian Open but left Melbourne Park in frustration on Tuesday after going down 7-5, 7-6 to Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva in the first round. Watson had her chances to level the match in the second set, but struggled to hit enough winners against her feisty opponent.

Although the 25-year-old from Guernsey fought back well in a feisty encounter to lead 4-1 in the second set, Putintseva is a particularly gutsy competitor. The world No 54, who is ranked 14 places above Watson, kept making her opponent play the extra ball before capitalising on her opponent’s regular mistakes.

Putintseva fought back to level at 4-4 in the second set and then broke again to take a 6-5 lead. Watson hung on, breaking back in the following game as Putintseva served for the match, and the Briton had her chances in the tie-break. Watson led 5-3 and had a set point at 6-5, but three points later Putintseva secured her victory.

“I definitely felt like I was the aggressor, but my balls just didn’t have enough on them,” Watson said afterwards.

“To her credit I thought she did really well to make a lot of balls, but I just don’t feel that I played very well today or very smart. I was just doing the same thing. She seemed to know where I was going to hit the ball every single time.

“It felt like it was either a winner of mine or a mistake of mine. That’s what I want, but I felt I made a lot more mistakes than winners.

“Going 3-0 and 4-1 up I felt in full control of that second set, but after a couple of close games and too many loose errors she was back in it and feeling comfortable again. But even so, later on in that second set I still felt that I could get it and go on to a third set.”

Watson has only progressed beyond the opening round of the Australian Open twice before (Getty)

Watson reached the semi-finals in Hobart last week and has at least got some matches under her belt in the first month of the season.

“I’m feeling quite negative after the match today because I’m just not really happy with it, but I have to take positives,” she said when asked to sum up her Australian summer.

“I’ve had a lot of matches at the beginning of the year, which is good, and the first round of a Grand Slam is always tough. I can’t just look at today. I need to look at the weeks before as well.”