Guernsey tennis star Heather Watson gained her first professional win yesterday when she beat the UK’s Jade Curtis 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

Playing in the first round of the ladies’ singles of the Caversham International tournament being held at Les Ormes, the 16-year-old showed strength and maturity well beyond her years with a gutsy display of attacking tennis.

Delighted with the victory, which gives her a second round tie today against one of Britain’s top women players Katie O’Brien, Watson said: ‘It went very well out there and I thought I played well.

‘I was a little bit slow to get started in the first set and then the second set Jade took and there was nothing I could really do, so for the third set I gave it everything.’