The prodigious talent of Laura Robson

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!"

Feeling the hope.

So, here it is. Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States and true to his word he has hit the ground running by instantly shutting down the so called 'legal' activities that the Bush administration was carrying out in Guantanamo Bay. While many were calling for the prisoners held there to be put straight through the American legal system, I can see the advantages in temporarily putting a halt to the torture and 'trials' running rampant at the terrorism camp off Cuba while he sifts through the mess left by the previous administration. Each case has to be sifted through on a case by case basis. Some prisoners will be tried through the American legal system, others will be deported back to their own countries. It is the other cases which complicate things however. Some will not be able to go through the legal system due to the illegal methods that have been used to extract information even if they pose a credible threat to America. Others would not be safe back in their own countries. It is here where Obama needs to make the tough decisions. Shutting down the trials was the easy bit, now he needs to work out how to clean up his predecessor's mess.

I have also been keeping a close eye on the Australian open. Could be an interesting tournament, more so on the men's side then the women's side. With four evenly matched contenders who will come up on top. Will it be Murray, the favourite - looking for his first grand slam title and in the best form of his life, Djokovic, the holder - trying to prove he is not simply a flash in the pan, Federer looking to reclaim his form and show that he is still a major force in world tennis, or the world number 1, Rafael Nadal who has never impressed on the hard courts but would desperately want to show he can do the business on all three courts.