Heather Watson has made a good start to her grass court season

Heather Watson has made a good start to her grass court season

Britain's Heather Watson overcame a top-10 opponent for only the second time in her career by beating defending champion Dominika Cibulkova at Eastbourne.


Watson made light of being ranked 117 places lower to knock out world number nine Cibulkova 7-5 6-4 in the Aegon International second round at Devonshire Park.

The victory delivers Watson a timely boost ahead of the start of Wimbledon, where the British number three needed a wildcard to enter the main draw due to her lowly ranking of 126.

But after pushing world number five Elina Svitolina to three sets in Birmingham last week, Watson went one step further against Cibulkova, the big-hitting Slovakian who reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon only 12 months ago.

She will now face Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

"I just felt everything came together and I played really well," Watson said.

"Is it my best win of the year? I guess so yeah. The crowd are really loud this year, I love it. The atmosphere is great.

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"I just am really enjoying playing at the moment."

Meanwhile, Wimbledon women's favourite Petra Kvitova withdrew from Eastbourne on Monday morning with an abdominal injury.

British number two Kyle Edmund extended his disappointing start to the grass-court season by losing to American Donald Young 6-4 3-6 6-3 in round one.

Edmund also fell at the first hurdle at Queen's last week to talented world number 193 Denis Shapovalov, before splitting with his coach Ryan Jones.

"It's just something that I felt I wanted," Edmund said.

"Do you make decisions based on timing or what people think? Everyone has their own way of thinking. I felt I wanted a fresh voice."