Robson wins girls' title ... and targets Venus Saturday, 5 July 2008
British tennis's shining new star Laura Robson became the first home player since Annabel Croft in 1984 to win the girls' singles title with a nerveless three-set victory against third seed Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand - and then served notice that she's after Venus Williams' crown as the queen of Wimbledon.Given the growing interest in the south Londoner, the match was scheduled for the vast arena of No.1 court - not that the reality of playing in an 11,000-seater stadium appeared to faze the 14-year-old in the slightest.
She started confidently with a quick break to romp into a 3-0 lead, only to be pulled back as Lertcheewakarn settled into her stride, having herself got used to the intimidating arena and partisan crowd.
With both players now having found their rhythm, Robson opened her shoulders and played as instinctively as she had throughout a tournament in which she has been beating opponents up to three years her senior.
She was striking her forehands cleanly and wrong-footing her opponent at will. She even got used to the rather unusual experience of having access to Hawk-Eye, the first time it would have been used at a junior match at Wimbledon. And, yes, it was the 14-year-old Briton who made the historic first challenge - surely a rare occasion of a girl of that age challenging the authority of an adult and being able to call on technology to support her case. That novelty did not distract her from the job in hand and she went on to wrap up the first set after 29 minutes.
Robson maintained her momentum at the start of the next by breaking the Thai in the opening game, but gradually Lertcheewakarn’s game grew in confidence and her shots found their mark on a more regular basis. That weight of shot from the more experienced player and no doubt the expectations of the crowd hanging in the air started to affect Robson’s game, which started to wilt.
She was broken for 1-1, broke back for 3-2 only to drop her own serve again for 3-3 and then battled hard to hold on to it for a third time as she scurried around the court to counter Lertcheewakarn’s effective angled play.
A certain amount of frustration was setting into Robson’s mind as illustrated by the odd shriek following some of her errors but there was no denying that Lertcheewakarn was in the ascendancy and she went on to claim the first set the Briton had dropped all week.
But Robson was able to cope with that setback. In the deciding set, she broke to 15 for a 2-0 lead, lost her own serve to 30 in a game where she delivered two doubles faults, and then regained the advantage for a 3-1 lead. She then staved off a break point with some brave serving and served a 13-shot rally to go 4-1, and then broke Lertcheewakarn’s spirit by claiming the sixth game, again returning with power and displaying a maturity which belies her age.
Her supporters were by now ecstatic and she responded with another solid serving display to claim the title. And after being handed the trophy by Ann Jones, one of the British women to have won the Wimbledon ladies' singles, Robson revealed she hopes she will be granted a wild card into the main draw next year.
And asked in her post-match TV interview how she would cope if that meant running into defending champion Venus Williams in the opening round, she showed the cheeky confidence that has got her this far on court and predicted with a smile:
"I will bring her down!"http://www.wimbledon.org
http://wimbledon.mediazone.com/other/SC_164.asx
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