When she bounced into the “big girls” league at 14 and the hordes descended on Florida to such an extent that the tournament on which her potential was revealed was renamed “The Virginia Slims of Capriati”, the scene that unfolded was so overhyped, it took the breath away. Jennifer Capriati went on to rise and rise, to fall heavily from grace, to become a grand-slam champion, to retire early because of injury and, at the US Open last month when the cameras focused on her in the crowd, the reaction was – “is that really our Jen-Jen?”
Quite what will befall Laura Robson, who can tell, but if its senior birth pangs are an indication, the ITF women’s tournament of Robson – aka a $75,000 event at the Welti Tennis Centre in Shrewsbury – is a remarkable introduction for a girl who needs to play another tour event before she can qualify for a world ranking.
Every time this 14-year-old sets foot on a court, Robson looks the part, plays the part and exemplifies the attitude and technique required of a leading player, which is something few of the game’s shrewdest judges doubt she is destined to become.
The Wimbledon girls’ champion of 2008 defeated Urszula Radwanska, the 2007 champion, 6-3, 6-3 yesterday to reach the quarter-finals and make British observers go wobbly at the knees. Radwanska, three years older than Robson and ranked No128 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, was beaten 6-4, 6-4 in the second round of the Wimbledon main draw this year by Serena Williams, who said that she thought the Pole was one to watch.
To place this in some perspective, in 1990, Capriati’s bow came in an event in which the best in the world competed; indeed, from the second round on, she defeated four players ranked inside the world’s top 30 before being stopped by Gabriela Sabatini, the world No3 at the time, in the final.
She was a giggling, bubbly girl with pigtails and a precocious attitude whose press conferences were a froth of “you knows”, “I means” and “wows”.
Although the event in Shrewsbury is far from the bottom rung, Robson is really just toe-dipping in the bigger leagues to see what happens. And what is happening is good. She is being shielded as much as possible, until her handlers believe that she is equipped to handle the maelstrom of interest being generated in her.
Her single-sentence quote after her first-round defeat of Sarah Borwell, her fellow Briton, was the work of her agent, not the starlet herself. Her task is to concentrate on playing the game and let the mega-deals that are already in the pipeline take care of themselves. And there is still schoolwork to be done, which she undertakes during breaks from practice at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, southwest London.
This evening, Robson plays someone old enough to be her mother, Tzipora Obziler, 35, of Israel. Such is the interest, organisers are constructing stands for additional fans to see the darling of British tennis.
source: timesonline.co.uk
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