 Photographer: Corinne Dubreuil
Date: 26 Jan 2009 |  Photographer: Corinne Dubreuil
Date: 26 Jan 2009 |  Photographer: Corinne Dubreuil
Date: 26 Jan 2009 |  Photographer: Corinne Dubreuil
Date: 26 Jan 2009 |  Photographer: Corinne Dubreuil
Date: 26 Jan 2009 |  Photographer: Corinne Dubreuil
Date: 26 Jan 2009 |
|
| 26 Jan 2009 - Melbourne, Australia - Eleanor Preston | |
| Robson holds off McHale |
Junior Wimbledon champion Laura Robson of Great Britain managed to battle through a high quality opening round encounter against Christina McHale on Monday, beating the American 75 63 to move through to the second round of the Junior Australian Open.
McHale was unseeded in Melbourne but was no less dangerous an opponent for that. She gained valuable experience after being given a wildcard into the women’s main draw – where she lost narrowly to Australian Jessica Moore - and was part of the USA’s victorious Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas team last year. McHale led Robson 5-3 in the first set before the Briton hit back to set up a second round meeting with Kanyapat Narattana of Thailand.
“I felt I played a really good match. Tactically I didn’t start the way I wanted to but when I went 5-3 down I realised I had to change something and that’s what I managed to do,” said Robson, who was born in Melbourne but left when she was 18 months old and has lived in the UK since she was four. “Christina was in seniors last week and she just managed to lose there. She also got to the final of Orange Bowl so it was a really tough first-round match. I’m happy I got through it. In the first set I just realised that she was making more errors on her backhand, so I just tried to feed off that and that seemed to work.”
Robson did not play last year’s Junior US Open and is therefore having her first taste of what it feels like to come into a major tournament as a reigning junior grand slam champion. She admitted that she had felt some jitters last week at the ITF Grade 1 event in Nottinghill but was settling into her status as one of the pre-Australian Open favourites. “Last week in a warm-up tournament for this I did feel very nervous going into every match,” said Robson. “I think that’s possibly one of the reasons why I lost in my quarterfinal. This week I’ve kind of got nothing to lose because I’m not the No.1 seed or anything like that. I’ll just go out there and play as well as I can.”
Robson turned 15 last week and revealed that she had been promised a very special birthday treat, though she was still waiting to take delivery of it. Coach Sven Groeneveld, who has worked with a string of top players including Ana Ivanovic, has been advising Robson and has pledged to get her a birthday card from her favourite player, Marat Safin. “I’ll be very excited if I do get that,” she said, with a big smile. “That would be a highlight.”
Elsewhere in the girls’ competition on Monday, Australian Isabella Holland moved safely through to the second round with a 61 75 win over Fatima Al Nabhani of Oman and was joined in second round by top seed Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand, who smashed Brazilian Fernanda Faria 6-0, 6-0. Croatian Silvia Njiric caused the day’s biggest upset by knocking out 12th seed Linda Berlinecke of Germany with a 63 62.
In the boys’ competition, Justin Eleveld of the Netherlands sent a shock wave around Melbourne Park by beating ninth seed Hiroyasu Ehara of Japan 67 63 64, while Australian Mark Verryth showed why he might be a dark horse for the title with a 76 64 win over third seed Marin Dragjana of Croatia. Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan also caught the upset bug, beating 12th seeded South African Nick Scholtz 64 76.
Related Articles
> Marathon man Szabo wins opening day epic
> Australian Open Preview
> Australian Open Acceptance Lists Published
^ Back to Top
|
