French Open: Heather Watson knocked out by Goerges

Heather Watson

Heather Watson lost 6-3 6-4 to Julia Goerges in the second round of the French Open on Thursday.

After winning three qualifiers, Watson, 20, impressed in beating Elena Vesnina in the opening round.

She produced a defiant performance against Goerges, the 25th seed, but the German simply had too much power.

Watson broke twice but only held her serve once in the first set and despite holding a 3-2 advantage in the second set Goerges, 23, had too much for her.

However, it was still a promising display by Watson, who reached the second round for the second successive year and now hopes to feature at the Olympics.

The Briton could not have wished for a better start, breaking Goerges in the opening game of the match.

But Goerges won the next game to love and after holding serve the German capitalised ruthlessly on two Watson double faults to make it 3-1.

World 110 Watson held her serve for the first time with two aces to pull it back to 5-3 but Goerges made no mistakes to take the first set.

After being broken in the first game of the second set, Watson survived a break point to hold serve at the next time of asking.

She then levelled at 2-2 with another break of her own and held to move 3-2 ahead but after dropping yet another service game, Watson fell 5-3 behind.

The Briton produced another determined game to hold her serve but Goerges took her first match point to seal the win.

"I expected myself to get through qualies, and when I saw the draw I expected myself to win my first round," said Watson. "I'm coming in with a different mentality now, a more confident approach.

"Julia played well, she didn't give me any rhythm at all and that's what these top players do.

"If it's short they just put it away, hit good shots. They'll miss some but I think I was just getting a bit frustrated, maybe trying to do a bit too much with my serve, with the short balls.

"I've just got get used to it. I'm still working on being aggressive and learning from moments like this."