Notable "nearlies" are Safina (lost in 2001 final), Sharapova (ditto 2002) and Ivanovic (ditto 2004).
So as the yongest winner since Hingis, one would be led on this small sample to think that Laura Robson's future looks bright, although I would beforehand have predicted a better overall outcome for these junior winners. Though I guess there's still plenty of "upside" for the last 3.
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
Looking at it in reverse, take current/recent top 10 players and then looking at their junior record:
Kim Clijsters Wim finalist at 15 years 1 month Justine Henin RG winner at 15 years Sharapova Wim finalist 15 years 2 months (also Aus finalist at 14 years 8 months) Ana Ivanovic Wim finalist 16 years 7 months Jelena Jankovic Aus winner 15 years 11 months Svetlana Kuznetsova RG finalist 16 years (also US Open finalist 16 years 3 months)
I would suggest that the key is to develop your strengths into real weapons that can gain you large number of points against even the best opponents. So if Laura is to compete for slams in the future she'll have to fine-tune her serve and continue to go for her forehand, as these are her potential weapons. I also liked her aggressive approach on return.
Right now I'd say she had an excellent chance of being a top 20 player, a good chance of being top 10 but beyond that we'll have to see how she develops physically, mentally and emotionally. If she grows to be 6ft tall then I might start to like her chances of winning a slam.
I think the thing that really gives hope is the age that Laura has acheived her Wimbledon totle. Most of the wionners above were 17 and of those 16, 3 are in the last 3 years with encouraging progress made there and more to come no doubt. The only younger winner is Hingis who did OK, I think
Even though, some have maybe not progressed quite as expected, ignoring Radwanska ( most recent and much more to come ), the lowest best ranking is 106, and the majority have made top 40.
I think there is every reason to be optimistic that Laura will be one of the better long term performers.
That said, as to top 10 or potential grand slam winner, let's just give her time and not put too big expectations on her shoulders. The next 2 or 3 years are so vital to how she is going to do in the long term.
I think all of them have done as well as they were supposed to, if not better. What exactly Flipkens and Olsa (particularly Flipkens - don't know what the norm was in Olsa's time) were doing by playing Juniors at that age, they only know and any Junior result for the girls after the age of 17 doesn't count for anything (unless you start tennis at 11 or 12 or something like that) tenniswise.
Girls' tennis, unlike boys' tennis, is good in the sense that if you're good at one level, you're likely to be good at the next. So unless something extremely weird happens, Robson will be top 100 (at the very least and probably much higher).
But one thing - this year's Wimbly draw was far weaker than normal Slam draws. I'm more excited by the fact that Robson is capable of beating players like Oudin and Broady (on grass).
Given the interesting stat flood I thought I'd put in my ha'peth.
I felt it would be interesting to see how old the top players were when they reached an arbitrary milestone (100 in the world). It provides an entirely useless and misleading method of saying, "Well, they're not top 100 by now so they're never going to be any good."
It's not massively accurate because I only went by the year end rankings and just went with the "Reached x age within that year" method so it could be that they were closer to the older year, but it seems that if you are not top 100 by 18 then you are not going to be top 10. Sucks.
For the guys top 12 (I needed Radek! Don't forget he was top 10 for a while), Tim and Greg:
The gents have a lot more margin for error. Only six of the fourteen were teens when they hit the top 100 and even the famously late developer Henman was a wunderkind compared with James Blake and Olde Man Stepanek. However, Boggo is 24'2 now so he's a write-off :)
Shes 5'7 now i think 5'10 is the average WTA top 100 height so around there would be ok.
I did go through the top 100 and note down their respective heights. Can't find the piece of paper but the mean was 5'8, the median 5'8 and the mode 5'9. There was roughly a 30/40/30 split between tall 5'10+/medium 5'9 - 5'7/ short5'6-.
Of the brits the only "contender" I can think of who is remotely Sharapova/Dementieva/Vaidasova shaped is Anna Fitzpatrick. The norm appears to be short/medium and "athletic" (Anne, Bally, Georgie) or short/medium and "stocky" (Cavaday, Elliot, Tara Moore). Are there any other willowy brits other than Fitz?
