What the papers say - day four

A photograph of the Queen's handshake with Martin McGuinness is pushed down to the bottom of the front page of today's Telegraph; the main image is, of course, of Heather Watson grinning on Centre Court. The morning after the day before, there is as much coverage of Watson's smile as there is of her forehands and backhands.

 

"Heather Watson may not boast the fastest serve or the most penetrating groundstrokes in the women's game, but she possesses the biggest smile in tennis," Alan Fraser writes in The Mail. "It flashed across her face like the sun emerging from behind a cloud at her moment of triumph, and remained there until lights out and the start of possibly another sleepless night. There are times when Watson, a teenager until last month, looks like a girl who's just been asked out on her first date, and this was one of them."

 

In The Times, Neil Harman writes of Watson's "big cheesy grin": "There is a long way to go in terms of having a British woman who might contend for The Championships, but if it was possible to bottle the joie de vivre that Heather Watson brings to the court and utilise it for the betterment of tennis, it would be difficult to put a price on it."

 

Ian Chadband of The Telegraph was on Centre Court to watch Prince Charles watching Roger Federer. And also to watch Sir Bruce Forsyth and his wife watch Federer. "Even the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall knew their place when they stepped into the court of King Roger here at Wimbledon. On his first visit to The Championships for 42 years, Prince Charles ended up on his feet, applauding Roger Federer'swizardry on Centre Court. Charles is by no accounts a great lover of tennis but Camilla is a big fan and, anyway, watching Federer performing so majestically in what is supposed to be the twilight of his career is not really about the tennis any more. " Chadband writes. "It is more about being able to say 'I was there' while the great man was still strutting his inimitable stuff. Or as Sir Bruce Forsyth, sitting with his wife next to the royal couple in the front row of the box, appeared to be saying: nice to see him, to see him..."