Sloane Stephens brushes away Laura Robson in round three – Australian Open 2013
Teenagers in the third round of the Australian Open are a treat to watch. It was the 19-year-old Sloane Stephens stepping up at the Show Court 2 against the likes of the 18-year-old Laura Robson who registered an upset against
the former Wimbledon Champion, Petra Kvitova, in round two. Shocking scenes were witnessed as the American star dumped the left-handed Briton in straight sets with scores of 7-5, 6-3.
Commenting about the encounter, Stephens said, “It was super intense. I think there wasn't a point where there wasn't something like, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is intense’. That's what it's about, getting out there and getting after
it. We played a good match. It was intense, but it was good.”
Robson confessed, “I'm sure I'll play Sloane a lot in the future. I'm sure after today she's going to be top 20; so good for her. Honestly I haven't played my best tennis but sometimes it's just going to be like that. Sometimes
it's going to be ugly and you just have to work your way through. It hasn't been the prettiest, but mentally it's been beautiful.”
World number 25, Stephens, drew the first bloody by breaking her opponent’s serve but the Briton fought back immediately to level the scores. The superior ranked American again took the lead courtesy to a breakpoint but Robson
stopped her just at the right time (10th game) to keep the set alive. However, the 53rd ranked Briton didn’t absorb the scoreboard pressure in the 12th game and threw away an opportunity to enforce the tie-breaker round.
Stephens was not only fighting against her competitor but also the noisy crowd who were backing the Briton to make another marvellous come back. Robson wasn’t able to convert the allotted two opportunities to break serve in her
favour but her opponent didn’t waste a second in pounding on to her.
The first time Stephens got a chance to push the Briton on back foot; she did that with utmost command unlike her rival. The trail was back on Robson who had to save a couple of breakpoints in a same game to avoid any major trail.
However, she couldn’t sort out the mistakes and leave them behind. The unforced errors kept on piling and that cost the match in the end.
The opening set took a fraction over an hour but the second set was rounded off in just 46 minutes that booked a date between Sloane Stephens and Bojana Jovanovski.
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