So can our babe sink Serena? She's Britain's girl next door whose dad used to bathe her in the kitchen sink. Today, Heather Watson takes on the most blingtastic diva in tennis history
- Tennis stars Serena Williams and Heather Watson appear very different
- One is world champion known for risqué outfits and expletive-ridden rants
- The other is mild-mannered Brit who relies on her winnings to pay her bills
- But today they go head-to-head for the first time in a third-round clash
One is a world champion diva known for her risqué on-court outfits and expletive-ridden rants. The other’s a mild-mannered Brit who relies on her winnings to pay her utility bills and counts her 85-year-old grandmother as her biggest fan.
At first glance, tennis stars Serena Williams and Heather Watson couldn’t be more different. But later today the pair will go head-to-head as they face each other for the first time, in a third-round clash at Wimbledon.
It’s only the second time Watson, 23, a relative unknown, has reached this stage of the tournament, while her American opponent, 33, is ranked world No 1 and has won Wimbledon five times. It’s less Clash of the Titans, more David versus Goliath.
But it’s not all over for our Heather just yet — as they may have more in common than you think. From fashion to family, money to men, SARAH RAINEY looks at how Watson and Williams stack up...
At first glance, tennis stars Serena Williams (right) and Heather Watson (left) couldn’t be more different
CASH IN THE BANK
Williams: With 67 singles titles and 22 doubles titles under her belt, it’s no wonder Serena has earned more money from her sport than any other female tennis player. Her prize money tots up to £44.6 million, with another £11.7 million on top from endorsements, her fashion line and a stake in American football team the Miami Dolphins, taking her total earnings to £56.3 million.
Watson: World No 64, Heather’s career earnings are far humbler, totalling the princely sum of £963,570. As she moves up the ranks, however, the cash is set to start rolling in, with her win on Wednesday alone securing a £77,000 pay packet. ‘I’ve recently got my own place and I’m going to have to start paying bills now,’ she says. ‘So this will help, I guess.’
Williams: Serena is known for her on-court tirades and frequently turns the court blue with her expletive-ridden rants — at everyone from opponents to the crowd. We’ve watched her flip out at an umpire (U.S. Open, 2011), slam her racket to the ground in fury (Australian Open, 2013) and tell a lineswoman she would ‘shove a ball down her throat’ after she called her out on a foot fault (U.S. Open, 2009). The latter led to a £6,300 fine and two-year probation.
Williams: With 67 singles titles and 22 doubles titles under her belt, it’s no wonder Serena has earned more money from her sport than any other female tennis player. Serena is also known for her on-court tirades and frequently turns the court blue with her expletive-ridden rants — at everyone from opponents to the crowd
There’s no sign of the potty-mouth calming down, either. Already at Wimbledon she has been given a warning for violating the rules with an ‘audible obscenity’ during a match.
Watson: She may seem a goody two-shoes alongside foul-mouthed Serena, but Heather’s record isn’t squeaky clean. In her first-round match at Wimbledon this week, BBC commentators had to apologise on air for her ‘colourful’ language. The bashful Brit later apologised, putting her words down to ‘the heat of the moment’. Though she’s not the sort to chuck her racket at anyone.
ACADEMIC ABILITY
Williams: She raised a few eyebrows last week by stating she wants to study medicine after retiring from tennis. But Serena is brainier than her bimbo-esque dress sense belies. She has been studying for a pre-medical degree at the University of Massachusetts, having been prompted to look further into the auto-immune condition that affects the production of tears and saliva, Sjogren’s syndrome, that afflicted her sister Venus. Her latest foray into academia follows previous courses in fashion and business management.
Watson: Privately educated at Melrose Ladies’ College in Guernsey, Heather moved to Florida aged just 12, so continued her education on the other side of the Atlantic. She skipped university to focus on her tennis career, and has said her Plan B career would be as an interior designer.
TWITS AND TROLLS
Williams: Stalkers come with the territory for a top tennis player and Serena has had plenty of obsessive fans. In 2002, a wealthy German called Albrecht Stromeyer was hauled off Centre Court at the U.S. Open after following her around the world for 14 months. ‘I love her deeply. My love is pure,’ the 34-year-old screamed.
Watson: World No 64, Heather’s career earnings are far humbler, totalling the princely sum of £963,570. While she may seem a goody two-shoes alongside foul-mouthed Serena, but Heather’s record isn’t squeaky clean
In 2011, she had another close shave when a stalker was arrested outside her home in the early hours while she was at the Met Gala.
Patenema Ouedraogo, 40, had been named by Serena after harassing her months previously, but police couldn’t track him down. He was found with a letter declaring them to be soul mates, and said he always knew where she was because of her Twitter updates to her 4.73 million followers.
DEBT THEY OWE TO MUM AND DAD
Williams: Serena’s dad Richard, a top tennis coach, decided that his daughters would be stars before they were even born.
As toddlers he took them to public courts near the family home in Michigan. Serena credits her father with ‘everything’ and has dedicated almost every win to him.
Serena Williams' mother Oracene Price is also her coach
Mum Oracene Price is also a coach whose role has been to keep her daughters focused. Now divorced from Richard, Oracene is a self-confessed ‘rampant feminist’ who delights fans with inappropriate outbursts. Once, asked if she gets sick of watching tennis, she said: ‘Oh, please! I go to sleep. That’s why I wear sunglasses.’
Watson: The girl from Guernsey was marked for greatness aged 12 after being spotted at a sports club.
Watson's parents — dad Ian, former managing director of Guernsey Electricity, and mum Michelle, a Papua New Guinean national — used their life savings to send her to the £25,000-a-year Bollettieri Academy in Florida
Her parents — dad Ian, former managing director of Guernsey Electricity, and mum Michelle, a Papua New Guinean national — used their life savings to send her to the £25,000-a-year Bollettieri Academy in Florida. Heather has described her father as her ‘idol’. A favourite picture is of her as a baby being washed by him in the kitchen sink.
This year she has let her parents watch her at Wimbledon for the first time, along with grandma Jean, 85.
Watson: She may still be an unknown on the global scene, but that hasn’t stopped trolls from attacking Heather on Twitter, where she has 79,000 followers. ‘I’ve had people threatening to kill me and kill my family, wishing that I get cancer and die a slow, painful death,’ she admitted this week.
Not to be deterred, she says the haters won’t stop her posting online. ‘These people, they’ve got no life,’ she added. ‘They’re just cowards.’
She also received a torrent of abuse after she blamed her defeat in February’s Australian Open on ‘girl things’, sparking a global debate about menstruation and sport.
LOVE MATCHES
Williams: She’s dated a hip-hop rapper, a billionaire film director and hunky Bulgarian player Grigor Dimitrov, who has since been in a relationship with fiery Russian Maria Sharapova for three years.
The women’s shared history is rumoured to have sparked several off-court spats. In 2013, Serena was recorded saying: ‘Hey, if she wants to be with the guy with a black heart, go for it.’
The turbulent times have passed, however, and Serena is now loved-up with on-off boyfriend and coach Patrick Mouratoglou, a Frenchman who used to teach Brit Laura Robson. A U.S. magazine reported she was looking at engagement rings earlier this year, but Serena refused to comment.
Patrick makes frequent ‘selfie’ cameos on her Instagram feed, which has 1.3 million fans.
Watson: Watson recently split from her boyfriend of two years, Phil Stephens, an investment banker and former teenage tennis star. Phil, 26, represented Britain in tennis while at school and went on to study finance at a U.S. university on a sports scholarship.
He and Heather bonded over their shared love of the game and holidayed together last year in Punta Cana, a palm-fringed resort in the Dominican Republic.
It’s not known why they broke up, but Heather is said to be happily single. She’s admitted she gets lonely on tour, though, so may be looking out for a handsome stranger around SW19.
HEY BIG SPENDERS
Williams: Serena certainly knows how to spend her vast wealth. She and sister Venus have shared a 11,000 sq ft Florida mansion for much of their careers, and in May Serena bought a £1.6 million new house for herself, complete with trophy room, karaoke room and ‘purse room’ to keep her hundreds of designer bags.
She also bought a £2.6 million plot in the nearby Bear’s Club golf development owned by golfing legend Jack Nicklaus. For trips to Europe, she owns a swanky two-bedroom apartment in Paris near the Eiffel Tower.
Serena also splashes her cash on everything from cars, including a flashy Bentley Continental Supersports, to jewellery — she’s sported a £32,000 Audemars Piguet gem-encrusted watch and a glitzy diamond ring that induced a ‘bling blister’ when she kept it on at the 2013 French Open.
Watson: Heather recently bought a sensibly sized bolthole in London and has said becoming a property owner was a ‘big, big goal’. In the south of the capital, it’s said to be handy for Wimbledon.
Watson also has a pad in Florida, where she stays for half the year, during the U.S. tennis season —though hers is believed to be rented.
She’s frugal with her earnings and indulges in only modest jewellery, most recently an anchor-shaped gold necklace to support a Leicester charity.
She shops in the High Street rather than designer boutiques — her latest bargain is a trio of tops that, she proudly admits, ‘cost a quid each’.
Watson recently split from her boyfriend of two years, Phil Stephens, an investment banker and former teenage tennis star
Watson's father used to bathe her in the sink because he said that she was the perfect size
A PASSION FOR FASHION
Williams: Serena is known for wearing the worst outfits ever to grace a tennis court, somewhat odd for a player who launched her own fashion line (called ANERES — ‘Serena’ backwards — in case anyone doubted her self-confidence).
We’ve seen her in a white trench coat (Wimbledon, 2008), skimpy denim skirt (U.S. Open, 2004), skin-tight catsuit (U.S. Open, 2002) and even a red satin negligee (Miami, 2010).
Whatever she’s wearing, Serena can always be relied upon to flash her bottom at least once during a game.
Watson: When it comes to clothes, Heather is the Kate Middleton of tennis: safe, demure and a bit boring. She can reliably be found in pleated tennis skirt, cap-sleeved T-shirt and visor, never anywhere close to breaching Wimbledon’s strict all-white dress code.
Her biggest fashion concession is a pair of luminous pink trainers. ‘I do love my sports kit,’ she said recently.
AND WHEN THE COVERS COME OFF
Williams: With a bottom like reality TV star Kim Kardashian and ample assets up top, Serena is more than happy to flaunt her figure. Earlier this year, she posed in an advert for an Australian underwear brand, showing off her washboard abs.
Her pear-shaped 5ft 9in body is not typical of an athlete, but she’s not shy about it, saying: ‘I learned to be proud of my curves and to embrace my large boobs and my butt.’
Williams: With a bottom like reality TV star Kim Kardashian and ample assets up top, Serena is more than happy to flaunt her figure (left) Heather isn’t afraid of baring her body either and has posted revealing bikini shots on her Instagram account (right)
She works hard to stay trim, though, practising yoga, dance and running as well as training every day on court. All of which helps her spectacular 128mph serve.
Watson: At 5ft 7in and weighing 9st 10lb to Serena’s 11st, Heather is hardly statuesque, but she’s made a name for herself as a strong, agile player whose athletic build and firm biceps make her a demon with a racket. Her fastest serve stands at 109mph. For off-court training she likes trampolining and cycling in Richmond Park.
Heather isn’t afraid of baring her body either and has posted revealing bikini shots on her Instagram account.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3147953/So-babe-sink-champ-s-Britain-s-girl-door-dad-used-bathe-kitchen-sink-Today-takes-blingtastic-diva-tennis-history.html#ixzz3eowqtRP9
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