Ksenia Pervak has just beaten Laura Robson in the final of the junior girls title in the Australian Open. The Russian, who is two and half years older than Robson, was stronger than Laura for much of the match, and won comfortably in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.

Laura put in a lot of effort though and went for all the shots. She seemed a little suprised that Pervak was able to return a lot of her powerful strokes. Then again, with Pervak being a couple of years older, she’s had a lot more experience on the women’s circuit and is of course a little more used to the type of play.

Still, even making the final is an amazing achievement for Laura, and it’ll be interesting to see how she plans to continue her junior career from now. I expect we’ll see her play in quite a few more events on the women’s circuit now, and slowly start to move up from the junior game. If I’m not mistaken, now that she’s turned 15, Laura is able to compete in a maximum of 10 senior events in the calendar year.

So, well done to Ksenia for winning the title, commisirations to Laura who played a great game. Let’s hope she bounces back and goes on to win many titles this year!

Check out our image gallery for 100+ Laura Robson pictures from the Australian Open.

The BBC will be commentating on the junior girls final of the Australian Open live on BBC Radio Five Live. If you don’t have access to a radio then fear not, you should be able to listen online. Those staying up for the result can head over to BBC iPlayer and listen there (you’ll need to install RealPlayer).

We’re not sure if any websites are showing the live TV broadcast, but if you know of any that are (free and legal) then let us know in the comments so we can spread the word.

The final is scheduled to start at 02:00 GMT (about 50 minutes to go from the time of this post).

UPDATE: The broadcast has now begun. The commentator has confirmed that no live broadcast is being made, all cameras are currently at the side of the courts, unmanned!

02:55: Robson has dropped the first set, 6-3

03:24: Robson has lost the second set and the match 6-3 6-1. But she played a great game, still coming runner up in a grand slam is an amazing achievement, well done to her! And well done to her opponent Ksenia Pervak for winning.

Laura Robson has reached her second junior grand slam final after defeating Thailand’s Noppawan Lertcheewakarn 6-4, 6-3 in her semi final match.

So far, Laura’s matches have all been played on the outside courts, but this match was was on the Margaret Court Arena, the third largest court at Melbourne Park, on which she managed to pull a pretty decent sized crowd of around 200 people who watched her beat her Thai opponent. On Saturday, she’ll be playing in front of around 15,000 when she plays at Rod Laver Arena in the final against Ksenia Pervak of Russia, the number 3 seed.

How the semi-final played out

The match was delayed for about two hours due to extreme heat, with the temperature peaking at around 44 degrees Celsius mid-afternoon in Melbourne.

When play began, Laura got off to a bit of a slow start, going 3-0 down before coming back strong to take the first set.

Carrying this momentum into the second set, she raced ahead to a 4-0 lead as she got the double break on her Thai opponent. After Lertcheewakarn got a break back Laura did the same, bringing the score to 5-1.

Lertcheewakarn was looking like she might take the match to 3 sets, after Robson failed to serve out the match and then held her serve for a second time to get back to 5-3.

But Laura was too much for her, and held her serve to comfortably win the match.

We wish Laura the best of luck in the final tomorrow!

P.S. The Australian Open website has put up the interview with Laura after she won the semi-final. So check that out if you’re interested. Also, Eurosport have the video of said interview. [Thanks for the links Pedro]

Laura’s now through to the semi finals of the Australian Open after her opponent Elena Bogdan of Romania (who was runner-up in the French Open), was forced to retire after a fall earned her a painful ankle injury.
Laura had won the first set 6-3, but was trailing 5-2 0-30 when Elena fell, it looked like it was going to go to a final set, but Elena was advised to retire and did so after attempting to serve.

Robson will now play Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand for a place in the final. The top seed was beaten by Laura in last year’s Wimbledon final.

Laura made it through her last-16 match yesterday with relative ease, and so did fellow Briton, Heather Watson, meaning the two will both fight it out for a place in the semis.

Taking advantage of her third consecutive 10am start, Laura cruised through her match with Silvia Njiric of Croatia, winning in straight sets yet again 6-4, 6-2.
Watson, who played Japan’s Miyabi Inoue had a far tougher match, which went on so long that the Australian Open’s “Extreme Heat Policy” was enforced to allow the girls a 10 minute break to take on extra fluids and cool down. Watson eventually won that match 7-6, 4-6, 6-4. Just how much that has taken out of her we don’t know, but the heat is certainly one hell of an external factor the players have to deal with out there.

Both players are progressing really well in their careers right now, and we’ll see Laura play fourth seed Elena Bogdan from Romania, while Heather will be taking on third seed Ksenia Pervak.

Laura has made it through a challenging match with Thailand’s Kanyapat Narattana, eventually winning 6-3, 7-6 (7-0). After winning the first set, Laura found herself 5-2 down in the second. However, she fought back to 5-5 and took it to a tie-breaker, leading to a relatively easy victory.

Laura will next play Croatia’s Silvia Njiric for a chance to reach the quarter-finals.

We’ve added some pictures of Laura playing in the Australian Open yesterday. At the moment there are only 9 images but if we come across more we’ll keep adding them to the gallery.

Laura Robson has made it through to the second round of only her second junior grand slam appearance, hoping to emulate her success at last year’s Wimbledon.

She beat American Christina McHale in straight sets 7-5 6-3 in a match lasting 80 minutes. McHale is ranked over 100 places higher than Laura in the seniors, so this is a great win for her.

Some match stats thanks to epsilon9:

1st Serve % 50 of 77 = 65 %
Aces 6
Double Faults 8
Winning % on 1st Serve 33 of 50 = 66 %
Winning % on 2nd Serve 9 of 27 = 33 %
Receiving Points Won 35 of 63 = 56 %
Break Point Conversions 6 of 7 = 86 %
Total Points Won 77

Laura will face Thailand’s Kanyapat Narattana in the secon round, a girl whose game Laura must be getting quite familiar with now!

Laura will also be playing in the doubles tournament, with regular partner Anna Orlik. Stay tuned to LRF for all the updates in Laura’s progress in the Australian Open.

Sad news for Laura fans, she and her partner Anna Orlik were defeated by the Indonesian and Thai pairing of Beatrice Gumulya and Kanyapat Narattana in straight sets 6-4 7-5.

The Asian pairing got their revenge it seems – you may remember that Laura and Anna beat them in the doubles final of the recent Eddie Herr tournament.

Stay tuned for more updates on Laura’s progress through all the upcoming tournaments.

We’d like to wish Laura a very happy birthday today, she has now reached the ripe old age of 15! Let’s hope it’s a good day for her with a win in her matches she has to play.

UPDATE: Unfortunately it turns out Laura was beaten in her match with Richel Hogenkamp of Holland in a three set match in which she actually started pretty well, eventually losing 1-6 6-0 7-5. The other Brit left in the tournament Heather Watson was also defeated.

As far as we’re aware, Laura’s still in the doubles draw and has reached the final of it partnering Anna Orlik again, so we’ll update you on her progress in that if we actually get any news about it. If you know anything then please let us know in the comments. Thanks!

UPDATE #2: We can confirm Laura Robson and Anna Orlik have reached the girls doubles final (they are the number 3 seeds) and will be playing Beatrice Gumulya and Kanyapat Narattana.