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" Heather Watson has vowed to remain British No1 next year despite an expected challenge from Laura Robson and hopes to become a serious contender in major tournaments. Watson became the first British woman to win a WTA Tour title since 1988 with her victory at the Japan Open in October. That success propelled her to 49th in the world rankings and signed off an impressive season in style, although her Olympics ended in disappointment after Andy Murray opted to play mixed doubles with Robson, the pair winning the silver medal. The 20-year-old was due to play alongside Tim Henman at the Statoil Masters tournament on Thursday night at the Royal Albert Hall, however, having already completed five weeks of her winter-training programme, dividing her time between Nick Bollettieri's camp in Florida and London, she has the Australian Open firmly in her sights. Asked about her immediate ambitions, she said: \"Yes, I want to finish as British No1 again, I wouldn't want to finish as British No2. There's so much I can improve on in my game. It's such a positive that I've got to where I am with so much to work on. I've been working on being more aggressive and coming to the net. \"I'm so glad I've got this title under my belt now because I knew I could do it. I was thinking to myself that I hadn't won a title in a while, I really wanted a tournament win. I feel like it's really pushed me on in training and I feel more confident. I'm so glad that I've done it and proved that I can do it.\" Watson admitted she was \"upset\" when Murray opted to play with Robson at the Games. \"Anybody who could have had the opportunity to play would have wanted to,\" she added. \"I felt like I missed out but there's nothing I could do, they got the silver medal so I'm pleased with that.\" The Guernsey-born player will soon sit down with her father, Ian, to assess key areas of her game that require improvement and set out \"tough\" rankings goals in a \"very critical and honest\" annual review ahead of tournaments in Auckland and Hobart. Watson's best performance in a grand slam came at Wimbledon this year, when she reached the third round only to be comprehensively beaten by the then world No3 Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-2. She soon hopes to be seriously challenging at the back end of majors and is looking forward to starting afresh in Melbourne next month, in contrast to last year when she damaged ankle ligaments playing football and dropped to 129th in the world. \"I'm really looking forward to it. Last year I went into it with half a sprained ankle. I'm going in fit and not playing football before I go out,\" she said. \"This year at Wimbledon against Radwanska I just played awful, I didn't do anything right and a tried to do way too much. It really backfired. With more experience and dealing with situations I'd really want to be [challenging for majors] in three to four years.\" This article was written by James Riach, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 6th December 2012 17.10 Europe/London    guardian.co.uk &amp;copy; Guardian News and Media Limited 2010  &amp;nbsp;  image: &amp;copy; marianne bevis"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2012/12/07/heather-watson-out-to-hang-on-to-british-no1-ranking/>