In her Centre Court debut at Wimbledon, Laura Robson lost in straight sets to fourth seed Jelena Jankovic. The Serbian tennis powerhouse beat British wild card Laura Robson 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) on Monday in the Wimbledon ladies' singles first round. The 16-year-old former Junior Wimbledon Champion was making only her second senior appearance at the world famous grass court tournament and faced a tough task against the Serbian former world No.1.
Backed by the Centre Court crowd, Robson who is to be considered one of Britain's best tennis hopes, was the 2008 Wimbledon girls' champion. She had been given a wildcard into the main draw after rising to 234 in the world rankings. The Australian-born who recently entered the senior level in tennis, is the youngest player in the draw. She previously won her junior title on Number One Court.
Facing her first top 10 opponent, Robson lost her opening service game, double-faulting on break point giving Jankovic an immediate advantage. Robson made a nervous start, double-faulting to hand over a break in the opening game of the match. However, she showed some true skill and worked her way into the contest, which earned her a chance to level in game six.
"Jankovic will be expected to win so she'll be free to just play," said Robson’s coach Martijn Bok, who has worked with the young tennis player for the past three years. "And I think Jankovic's style might just suit Laura's."
Jankovic, who has never gone beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon, lost there last year in the third round to the then 17-year-old Melanie Oudin. Her only title this year is from the Indian Wells tournament in March and in 2007 she became the only woman on the WTA Tour to have played 20 tournaments in a season.
A 13th ace of the day from Robson on Jankovic's fourth match point could not stop the world number three, who sealed the win with a backhand on the next point after one hour and twenty-seven minutes of play.
Robson became the third British woman to lose on the opening day at Wimbledon. Fortunately, some real positives could be drawn from this defeat.
The Brit rallied in game nine, producing a number of powerful forehand winners to break Jankovic for the second time before holding her own serve to level at 5-5.
Jankovic then edged ahead once more before the Londoner saved two match points to force a second set tie-break. The tie-break began with two breaks of serve before Jankovic earned three match points. Robson saved two of them with a backhand cross-court winner and her thirteenth ace of the match before the 25-year-old world sealed the win and set up a second-round match with Canada's Aleksandra Wozniak.
"It's a nice challenge; in my opinion, it's good she has Jankovic," Bok said. "Laura definitely has it in her to beat the very best players. She's a power player. She likes to play big. But, having said that, she also has a loose wrist, which provides good variety to her game."
"I think she has a good potential, she's very young, she has a good game, she was serving especially well today. It's really amazing, she's very young and she has a really great serve, especially her first serve and when it's going in, it's very tough to return, especially on grass courts where the ball skids," said Jankovic after today’s match.
With only one win on the senior women's tour so far, and that at Birmingham this month, few anticipated anything more than a gutsy defeat as the 16-year-old made her Centre Court debut. That lack of expectation, however, could work in Robson's favour in the future according to her coach, Martijn Bok.
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