The 2008 Wimbledon tournament was seen as an unmitigated disaster until the final weekend of the tournament when all but one of the nine British participants were out by the second round; Britain’s one great hope Andy Murray had his game torn apart in a one sided quarter final by the eventual champion Rafael Nadal and Britain’s hero from 2007, Andy’s older brother Jamie, fell short of defending his mixed doubles crown by going out in the semis. Through this doom and gloom of newspaper stories and columns dominated with condemnation of yet another failure of the LTA’s bid to bring forth a future Wimbledon singles champion emerged a certain 14 year old, unnoticed until Jamie and Andy bid farewell to SW19, who surged towards the final of the junior tournament with a refreshing innocence and all the while completely oblivious to the fact that she was suddenly rivalling Federer, Nadal and the Williams sisters in terms of column inches in the national newspapers as she pushed aside players 3 or 4 years older than her.
The rest of 2008 and 2009 were less groundbreaking for Robson as continuous changes to her body affected her ability to maintain the remarkable levels she found during Wimbledon. Indeed during 2009 she was overshadowed by fellow British junior, Heather Watson, who capped off a great year with the US Open Junior title. Over the past week, however, she has once again shown the promise and quality she showed during that remarkable run in 2008. The Hopman Cup could be seen as a baptism of fire, thrown into senior competition with women ranked in the top 60 and men ranked equally impressively in a series of tough mixed doubles ties. Robson has shown though that the only thing these girls have on her is experience. Her first three singles ties got progressively harder but instead of shying away and accepting the beating, she fought hard and gave a good account of herself even when up against the world number 5, Elena Dementieva who herself came remarkably close to breaking the Williams cartel on the Wimbledon Championship with a very good performance in the 2009 semi final.
Robson seems to have all the attributes of a true champion and although the otherwise reliable Andy Murray let a British win ultimately slip from the grasp of the pair in the final tie against Spain, Robson’s assured win over the world number 26, Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez is sure to strike a warning shot in women’s tennis. She still has a long way to go and her body will still develop further. If all goes well though it will hopefully not be too long before her emphatic statement in her post match interview to that Wimbledon final about then Wimbledon champion, Venus Williams, will come true. "I’ll take her down!"
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