Green grass for Robson
«FEATURES April 2009 | Kevin McIndoe
You have got to hand it to Laura
Robson. As an Australian who wants to bat for Britain, she is clearly
not one to follow the crowd.
And it has returned the favour, roaring the teenager to a three set win against Thailand's Noppawan Lertcheewakam in the 2008 junior Wimbledon singles final.
Even the legendary Venus Williams had to share the sports pages with the Melbourne-born British ace in July 2008, despite the American having bagged her fifth Wimbledon singles title.
And fiery Robson quipped that she would "take her [Williams] down" in due course. But joking apart, the south London schoolgirl knows she is teetering on the senior game despite being engulfed by media hype, autograph hunters and online fan sites.
Robson did made her professional senior debut in 2008 at a minor US$10,000 tournament in Limoges, France, where she fought through the qualifiers but ran out of steam and retired in the second round.
The teenager then pulled off a string of remarkable results at a Challenger ITF tournament in Shrewsbury, England. The pick of these was a straight set success over the 2007 Junior Wimbledon singles champion Urszula Radwanska - the younger sister to 2008 Eastbourne winner Agnieszka. Robson reached the final four, but was destroyed 6-0 in the third set by the then world no105 Maret Ani.
"I can cope with playing at this level but they have more experience," admitted Robson. "I can definitely play with them, it's just a question of getting the experience. I'm going to carry on playing junior tournaments and work my way onto the senior tour."
But how brilliant is Robson? Still growing in confidence and height, the tricky left-hander plays an aggressive baseline game with the inevitable two-handed backhand.
Carl Maes, who previously worked with ex-world no1 Kim Clijsters at the same age, said: "Robson plays at the same level on grass, perhaps even a bit better."
But Clijsters retired at the height
of her game aged 23, having suffered too many injuries and winning just
one Grand Slam title - the 2005 US Open. However, the brilliant Belgian
is now preparing to once again be a big hit when she returns to the WTA
Tour in late 2009.
And there are other young teenagers who came and went off the radar quite swiftly, such as the Martina Hingis, Tracey Austin (pictured) and Jennifer Capriati.
Robson's talent was spotted when she was aged just 10 back in 2004, and she has received LTA funding ever since. Steve Martens, the LTA's player director, is confident of Robson's future and revealed about his prodigy: "It's fantastic, but there are so many pitfalls along the road that have happened to lots of others."
But the LTA are keen to protect their star pupil and their employee Steve Kotze travels with her while Dutch coach Martijn Bokthe smoothes out her game.
Yet the WTA has sensibly limited players under 16 to annually compete in a maximum of 10 senior events. So Robson will have to wait a bit longer before taking part in the WTA Tour on a full-time basis despite being managed by leading sports firm Octagon and having lucrative deals with adidas and Wilson.
Nigel Sears, the LTA's head coach for women's tennis, said: "There are distinct similarities between Laura and Andy Murray. You cannot fail to recognise such a depth of class when they are both on a tennis court."
But
British tennis's two beacons also have another thing in common, namely
that neither is English.
I'm going to carry on playing junior tournaments ... and work my way onto the senior tour."
- Laura Robson