All the background buzz about 14-year-old Laura Robson,which started little
more than a week ago, came to a thunderous climax on Court One yesterday as
she captured the Wimbledon junior title. Her 6-3 3-6 6-1 win over Noppawan
Lertcheewakarn of Thailand made it a huge day for British tennis and as of
last night, Laura’s life took a significant turn. The challenge now is to
take care of all her current assets and shield her from all the side issues
which could only distract from the main objective.
The breakfast-time discussion in the family home in Wimbledon today may not do
anything more than prolong the celebration into this evening, when Laura
will be feted alongside the senior champions at the end-of-tournament dinner
in Park Lane.
Tonight, she thought she might like to wear a blue dress and sit with the
Russian player and men’s semi-finalist Marat Safin, but after her match she
said that Safin’s agent had given her a letter on Friday. “It says — I’ve
got it memorised actually — ‘To Laura, I’m sorry I can’t come to the ball
but good luck’. It was really nice. He’s turned me down unfortunately — but
I think he’s a bit old for me anyway.”
Tomorrow Laura is due to set off for Holland for three weeks of tournament
play at junior level while in an office north of Putney Bridge in London her
agents, Octagon, will be overjoyed with the progress of their young client
and might be able to gauge what kind of riches might come her way and plot
the early stages of a sensitive course of action. Without doubt, massive
rewards await winners. Venus Williams, the senior singles champion, won
£750,000 yesterday and has lifetime prize-money of around £20m. Justine
Henin of Belgium, who retired this year,won £2.5m in 2007 alone.
Laura has a racket deal with Wilson and one with adidas for clothing, and her
agents will be able to assess other potential earnings that will relate to
her newly-found teen hero status. Whatever, Laura’s cash will be mounting by
the hour when things start to fall into place, and on current evidence there
are no limits.
Just after Wimbledon began, Gerald Williams, a long-term reporter at the
championships who is working for Sky, was told by Martin Mulligan, who was
runner-up in 1962 and knows the game inside out: “You should see this
English girl — she is the best girl player I have seen anywhere in the world
for the past 10 years.”
Williams began to hear other views emanating from Australian sources —
Mulligan is an Australian but has lived in Italy for years running the Fila
clothing operation — and the evidence in support of Laura as the next
British winner of Wimbledon began to mount, especially from Australia, where
Laura was born.
She could not be more homespun these days. She has a British passport, lives
within a five-minute walk of the All England Club with her parents, Andrew,
an oil company executive, and Kathy, and is the hottest property that the
women’s game in this country has had in years.
For the moment Laura is driving the family name hard but once Wimbledon is
over and the furore surrounding her dies down, she will have to start to
show if she can justify the optimism she has helped create.
“She is a hot property and it is a question of how her career is going to be
handled by the LTA,” said Ann Jones, who was junior champion in 1956 and won
the senior title in 1969, and presented the trophy to Laura yesterday. “The
only unfortunate thing is that she is the only one. I hope she doesn’t get
too much attention — when I was playing there were always two or three of us
at the top. It is tough being the only one but she is a really good
prospect, she seems to have the right temperament.”
One of the most interested observers of Laura’s progress is former British No
1 Annabel Croft, whose coach in her playing days, the Australian left-hander
Owen Davidson, is another who believes Laura is heading for the heights. He
told Croft: “There is your next British Wimbledon champion.”
“I think Laura is fantastic,” said Croft, who was the last British winner of
the junior title in 1984. “I have been following her progress and I knew she
was a fighter because she has never let go in any of her matches. She is
very aggressive, no weaknesses, and she is the full package. After a couple
of matches here she knew how to handle everything, photographers and so on.
It’s a raw talent which is extraordinary. I think she will make the transfer
to the Tour quite seamlessly, and you don’t have to get down on yourself
when you get there. It is a soulless, selfish and self-absorbing life. There
are not a lot of friends out there. I craved friends and I realised I was
never going to get that from the Tour. It’s a totally unreal world . . . you
just don’t know what is going to happen out there. But Laura is very
complete, that game is only going to get better, she has a horrible \ lefty
serve, she takes the ball early and before you know it you are on the back
foot. For me tennis is in the head and that is where she is strong. I would
say at this stage she looks tough but the Tour finds you out. I feel she
will react well.”
When Laura starts a new week tomorrow she is certain to recognise that life
has altered dramatically. Carl Maes, who runs British women’s tennis for the
LTA and helped the Belgian duo Henin and Kim Clijsters on the way to the
top, is likely to favour a similar route for his latest charge. That would
mean Laura appearing on the main Tour at a late stage of next year. Maes
said: “The nicest thing for Laura would be that we can leave her alone for
the next six months, so she doesn’t start walking with her head in the
clouds.”
Before this Wimbledon there was real concern about how the British women would
perform and what impact, if any, they would leave on the tournament. In the
end five started and of them only Anne Keothavong was in on merit, the rest
having been awarded wild cards. There were just two first-round winners,
Keothavong and Elena Baltacha.
Already the senior British players will know that there will be greater
demands on them to improve or face the possibility of losing support from
the LTA, which is itself under fire. No wonder that every step Laura Robson
took at Wimbledon was watched so eagerly.
She has already trained with top players such as Martina Hingis, has set
herself a target of being in the top 500 by the end of the year and carries
a label from Ladbrokes to say that before this success she was 50-1 — she is
now as short as 6-1 — to be Wimbledon champion by 2020. That is enough to
aim at.
Past girl winners
Tracy Austin Defeated Hana Mandlikova in the 1978 final. Then went on
to win the ladies’ US Open title the following year and in 1981 before
injury ended her career. She now commentates for the BBC
Zina Garrison Won in 1981 and lost to Martina Navratilova in the
Wimbledon final in 1990 Annabel Croft Britain’s last champion in 1984 but
never progressed beyond the third round of a Grand Slam. She retired, aged
21, and now has a career as a TV presenter.
Martina Hingis The youngest winner of the girls’ singles title in 1994.
Went on to win five Grand Slam singles finals and nine doubles titles in
major championships
Amelie Mauresmo The French player won in 1996 and10 years later enjoyed
her best year as she won both the Australian Open and Wimbledon titles and
became world No 1
Kim Clijsters Beaten finalist in 1998, the Belgian reached four Grand
Slam finals between 2001 and 2005, winning the US Open
Maria Sharapova Within two years of losing the girls’ final in 2002,
she had won the ladies’ competition. The Russian has won every Grand
Slamsingleseventapartfrom the French Open
