Laura Robson has just begun her second round match of the juniors tournament at Wimbledon. She is facing 18 year old Sally Peers of Australia. The match is available on the BBC Red Button live as well as on the BBC website for UK viewers only. For those who can’t watch the match live I’ll be posting semi-regular text updates on this post.
To fit the match in it has been moved from Court 2 on to Court 4, so the girls don’t have Hawk-Eye available.
17:50 Things pretty even right now. Both girls holding their serves. Currently 2-2 in the first set.
18:05 Laura has won the first set! 6-3
18:10 Laura gets an early break in the second set, currently leading 1-0
18:27 Both girls have held serve since my last update but Laura has just got another break. Laura now up 4-1.
18:31 Laura wins her service game fairly easily. 5-1 up now.
18:35 Peers managed to hold her service game, Laura now can serve for the match.
18:37 A bee distracts Laura as she’s about to serve for the match at 40-30 up, she’s terrified of them!
18:39 And Laura wins the match! 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and three minutes. Great match, well done Laura!
UPDATE: Seems a lot more photographers were there today, we’ve added 26 new pictures of Laura Robson to our gallery.
An interview with Laura Robson after her first round junior’s match has been put up on Wimbledon.org, click the link to read it in full.
Laura Robson’s next match is on court 2 today so she should get a bigger crowd watching her. With three doubles matches before hand it’s likely Laura’s won’t start until the early evening, perhaps around the same time as yesterday. She’s up against Sally Peers of Australia, not much is known about the 18 year old, and the two have never met before so another new experience for both.
The first matches on court 14 have finally come to an end, so Laura and her opponent will be on court soon to begin their match. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’ll be televised, at least not live or online due to more high profile matches taking place right now. Scratch that, it is available for live streaming on the BBC website for those of you in the UK, and also on the BBC red button.
I’ll keep this post updated with the latest scores every now and then.
19:04: After a long back and forth point at deuce, Laura has broken Paliivets’ serve and with 4 games played, now leads the first set 3-1.
19:18 It’s now 5-3. Laura is serving for the set.
19:21 Laura has taken the first set 6-3! Good start to the junior championship for her, let’s hope she can continue her good form through the second set now.
19:34 We’re about halfway through the second set now, Laura currently leading 3-2, and is on serve.
19:42 Laura now 4-2 up.
19:49 Laura takes game, set and match for a straight sets victory, 6-3, 6-2! Well done Laura!
Don’t forget if you’re looking for a place to chat about Laura’s progress and other related topics, check out our forums where you can discuss tennis and Laura Robson with other like minded individuals!
We’ve finally caught the twitter bug and now have ourselves an account on twitter, so if you use the website, why not follow LauraRobsonFans as another way to keep up to date with all the latest news and progress of Laura Robson at Wimbledon, and all the other tournaments she will be playing after. You may also like to follow Laura herself, at laurarobson5 (thanks for the tip Charlie!).
Over the last few days I’ve also taken the time to get our image gallery up to date with pictures of Laura playing in Wimbledon and other recent tournaments, check out our galleries for Wimbledon 2009, the Liverpool International and Nottingham Masters, there’s also a couple of new pictures added to the French Open gallery.
Finally, don’t forget Laura begins her junior title defence tomorrow. She’s on court 14 and will be playing sometime in the afternoon as there are three matches before hers. She’s up against 17 year old Katarena Paliivets of Canada, who is playing in her first Wimbledon, Laura and Katarena have never played before. We’ll be keeping you up to date with the score as the match progresses.
Laura Robson and Georgie Stoop are currently playing their second round doubles match against 16th seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova and Amelie Mauresmo. If you’re in the UK you can watch live on the BBC website.
At the moment the British pair are down 4-3, one break of serve from each pair. Stoop currently on serve will hopefully level it at 4-4. We’ll update you at the end of the set.
UPDATE: Kuznetsova/Mauresmo have taken the first set 6-3. However Laura and Georgie are playing a lot better today, let’s hope they can take the second set and set us up for a 3-set thriller!
UPDATE 2: Unfortunately Robson and Stoop could not take the second set from Kuzentsova and Mauresmo, and despite racing off to a 3-0 lead in the second, Kuznetsova/Mauresmo fought back to eventually win the match 6-3 6-4.
Don’t forget that later today the draw for the junior singles will be made, where Laura will then begin her title defence. We’ll keep you up to date with developments on that.
Laura Robson and doubles partner Georgie Stoop were involved in a thrilling doubles match yesterday which lasted for nearly 3 hours, the final set taking 1 hour and 46 minutes to complete. They were playing the other British pairing of Jade Curtis and Anna Smith on No1 Court. Laura and Georgie eventually won the match 6-4, 3-6, 13-11.
Tomorrow they’ll be up against what will most likely be an even harder challenge, 16th seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova, of Russia, and Amelie Mauresmo of France.
The BBC have put up the post-match interview with Laura, you can watch it over on BBC Sport. She talks about what she’s learned from the experience and that match itself.
Since people have requested them, we’ve added forums to Laura Robson Fans. Check out the Laura Robson Forums where you can chat about Laura, tennis, and anything else you want really.
Registration will only take a few moments, and is very simple. So head on over to the forums and make yourself an account, then introduce yourself!
Don’t have access to a TV? You can watch live on BBC iPlayer or read the live text commentary on the BBC.
UPDATE: Could we be on for a massive upset? Laura has taken the first set! She’s made quite a few unforced errors (19) but is still playing a better game the Hantuchova, who is looking very nervous.
UPDATE 2: Laura’s dropped the second set 6-4.
UPDATE 3: The match just ended, Laura unfortunately losing it on a double fault. Still, it was a great match, and great experience for Laura, especially since she managed to take the first set. Final score was 3-6 6-4 6-2.
Laura may be out of the women’s singles, but she could still have some success at Wimbledon this year. Next week when the juniors start she’ll be playing in the doubles tournament with Georgie stoop, so we’ll keep you up updated when that starts.
Laura Robson has lost her last preparation match for Wimbledon, the final of the Liverpool International. She was defeated by her opponent the controversial Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal, who’s grunts and screams are just 1 decibel off a lion’s roar. After losing the first set 6-4, Laura battled back well to win the second 2-6, and eventually lost the super tie break 10-6.
Laura now has what will probably be the most challenging match of her career so far ahead of her. Whatever happens, it’s sure to be a valuable learning experience for her, and we know she’ll give 100% in the match.
