Watson marches on

Heather Watson recorded a comfortable victory over Timea Babos
30 January 2013

British number one Heather Watson progressed to the second round of the Pattaya Open with ease after Hungary's Timea Babos was forced to retire in the second set.

Watson climbed to number 40 in the WTA rankings after reaching the third round of the Australian Open, where she lost to Agnieszka Radwanska, and she continued to impress in Thailand, dropping only one game.

The 20-year-old eighth seed had brushed Babos aside 6-1 in the first set and was cruising 3-0 in the second when Babos retired hurt, handing Watson a second-round meeting with Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia.

Sevastova had a harder task in dispatching Japan's Misaki Doi 6-4 6-2 to progress, while fifth seed Sabine Lisicki saw off the threat of fellow German Tatjana Malek with a 6-2 6-3 win.

Second seed Maria Kirilenko beat Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan 6-3 7-5 as American Vania King fell to a 6-4 6-4 defeat at the hands of Anastasia Rodionova of Russia.

Elsewhere, Sorana Cirstea of Romania moved beyond American Bethanie Mattek-Sands with a 6-1 6-3 win and Australia's Casey Dellacqua fell foul of a 6-2 6-2 triumph for Luksika Kumkhum.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in