It’s been a while since we posted any updates here, mainly because Laura’s been out of action since the Australian Open due to an injury. Calf muscle pain she was having was thought to be due to an injury however a second medical opinion showed that the problem had been caused only by a growth spurt. Because of this Laura’s team of people decided it would be in her best interests to stay out of competition for a while.

Laura will make her comeback in the Bonfiglio Trophy Under-18 event in Milan later this month, one of the biggest tournaments on the junior circuit, which begins on the 18th May. Laura has been practising on clay in Barcelona the last couple of weeks, in preperation for this event.

After this she will head to France to try and add another grand slam to her trophy collection, the junior competition for that runs from 31st May – 7th June. Not only does she have tennis to worry about, but also her GCSE’s, in the middle of the French Open  Laura will be taking her English GCSE a year early. After this it’ll be back to the UK for the grass court season, and also the defense of her Wimbledon junior title.

In other related news, soft drinks group Britvic has announced that it’s Robinsons brand will be sponsoring Laura Robson. Robinsons currently sponsor the Wimbledon grand slam, and have previously sponsored other UK players including Tim Henman, and more recently, Andy Murray.

Laura Robson has now taken over the top spot as the world’s number one Junior Girls tennis player, taking over from Thailand’s Noppawan Lertcheewakarn.

Laura is currently in the top 500 senior players too, at a career high position of 499th.

Wilson Racquet Sports have announced that they have extended a long-term contract with Laura Robson.

Laura has been using Wilson racquets since the end of 2007 and we all know how well she’s done since then. Commenting on the extended contract, Laura said “I am excited to be part of the Wilson team, I feel confident on the court, knowing that my racket, bag, strings are all of the highest quality”.

Laura is currently using a Wilson [K] Blade 98 racket, Eco Pro Tour Super Six bag, and a combination of Wilson Natural Gut 17 and Luxilon Timo 1.10 strings.

Let’s hope she continues to do well with this!

Laura Robson has won the MCC Young Sportswoman of the Year Award in the prestigious Sunday Times Awards held yesterday at Lord’s Cricket Ground. More than 250 people were in attendance.

Congratulations on a well deserved win Laura!

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.