THE result may not have been quite what Laura Robson would have wanted but, even so, Britain's latest, greatest tennis hope still has a Grand Slam record to boast about. So far, her record at the major events reads: played two, won one (at Wimbledon), runner-up in the other. So far so good.
Robson was beaten 6-3, 6-1 in the final of the Australian Open juniors by Ksenia Pervak from Russia yesterday. The ease with which Pervak secured victory will be a disappointment to Robson but it should not have come as a surprise. Pervak is bigger,
stronger and vastly more experienced than Britain's 15-year-old prospect and at the end of a gruelling tournament, that made all the difference. This week Melbourne has sizzled in the fiercest heatwave recorded with three consecutive days of temperatures above 43 degrees.
By the semi-finals, Robson was feeling the strain and felt sluggish as she dispatched top seed Noppawan Lertcheewakarn in straight sets. By yesterday, everything was beginning to catch up with her and as the unforced errors flew, so Robson's final was over in just 74 minutes.
The Russian's frame is in the Svetlana Kuznetsova mould rather than the Maria Sharapova version. Having lost in the first round of qualifying for the main draw, Pervak thought she might as well stick around for the junior competition and had no doubts about who was going to win. "I knew that I am the best here," she said simply.
"She was definitely hitting it with a bit more spin than me," Robson admitted. "Whether she was really that much stronger, I really don't know. But I didn't really have any problem returning her shots – just getting them in was the big deal."
Pervak is just four months shy of her 18th birthday and already has a world ranking of 154 after more than two years playing on the lower levels of the professional circuit. Robson, on the other hand, has only just turned 15 and is ranked 514 after playing just five professional events, the first last September. No wonder, then, that Robson was running uphill for most of yesterday's match.
"I think generally she won because she played more consistent than me," Robson said. "It's disappointing to lose, but I thought I played as well as I could have."
What she has learned this week – and in winning the Wimbledon juniors last summer – she thinks will stand her in good stead.
"I've learned about dealing with the extreme conditions," she said, "and also, letting go a bit more if I don't do so well at the start of the second set."
She is also settling in to life on the main tour. As she gave her last press conference, she was wrapped in a large, branded sweater belonging to Fernando Verdasco. The two are both from the Adidas stable so when she got cold waiting to do her post-match drug test, she bowled up to him and asked to borrow his woolly. Her next task was to secure tickets to the men's final – which probably explains why Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were keeping their heads down yesterday. Now, that really is a Grand Slam record worth boasting about.
