 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 01 Jul 2008 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 02 Jul 2008 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 01 Jul 2008 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 01 Jul 2008 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 01 Jul 2008 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 01 Jul 2008 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 01 Jul 2008 |
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| 01 Jul 2008 - Wimbledon, London - Eleanor Preston | |
| Robson and Evans knock out form players |
Britons Dan Evans and Laura Robson scored two of the day’s biggest upsets at Junior Wimbledon when they knocked out the two winners of last week’s Roehampton Grade 1 grass-court warm up event. Evans beat France’s Guillaume Rufin 7-6 1-6, 6-4 to move through to the third round, while Robson knocked out top seeded American Melanie Oudin with a 6-1, 6-3 victory.
“I was confident going in to the match because I’d spoken to people who’d played him and got some tips on how to play against him,” said Evans. The 18-year-old came from a break down in the third set against Rufin after double-faulting to surrender his serve but regained his composure to break back when his opponent served for the match. “Double faulting didn’t phase me because my gameplan had been to serve hard on both serves and come in,” said Evans. “I just kept doing what I had been doing to win the match.”
Evans had a sizeable crowd watching him on Court Six and believes that British players like him and Robson have a definite advantage playing at Wimbledon in front of a home crowd. “I think it definitely helps, yeah,” he said. “I could hear people shout ‘come on Dan, come on Dan’ and I kept thinking it was people I knew. Then I realised it was just people supporting me.”
Robson lost to Oudin in the Roehampton final and said that her experience against the American, who is currently No.2 on the ITF Junior World Rankings, was invaluable when she faced a rematch. “I think I knew how to play her almost because I knew what she was going to do when she started losing and stuff. This time I just stayed with my game plan a lot more,” said 14-year-old Robson, who is the youngest player in the girls’ draw. “Last week I won the first set and she started hitting a lot more defensive shots, slice, attacking her forehand just when I would hit it like half a metre short. So this time I was ready for that. I knew if I just kept returning well, and even if I didn't win that game, I knew that I could be able to serve it out. So there wasn't really any pressure to win that game, and I think that's why I returned that well.”
Elsewhere on day three of the Junior event at Wimbledon, Lesley Kerkhove of the Netherlands set up a meeting with Robson after knocking out the 15th seed Linda Berlinecke of Germany, while Australia’s Tyra Calderwood caused another upset when she knocked out promising Pole Katerzyna Piter to set up a third round meeting with third seed Noppawan Lerteewakarn of Thailand. Second seed Arantxa Rus eased safely through with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Zi-Jung Yang of Hong Kong.
In the boys’ competition, Finland’s Henri Kontinen displaced 14th seed Chase Buchanan of the USA and Filip Krajinovic of Serbia beat another American, seventh-seeded Ryan Harrison. The top two seeds Bernard Tomic of Australia and Tsung-Hua Yang of Chinese Taipei both moved through to the third round, though Tomic had to come from a set down against Christopher Rungkat of Indonesia.
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