Girls: 2010 Australian Open Junior Championships

RedCabbage · Club Coach

RE: Girls: 2010 Australian Open Junior Championships

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

Congratulations to Heather and good luck to Laura.

I've been looking at Karolina's stats: the 'eating' incident was a while back in April 2008 - in the last twelve months she has played 21 tournaments winning two (both 25k's) but has also lost to players ranked outside the top 500 six times, so fairly inconsistent.

Including Laura's stats for AO qualifying and the hopman cup, here is how their win/loss records stack up:

Opposition	Laura	Karolina
Top 50	1-3	0-1
51-100	1-2	0-1
101-150	2-3	1-2
151-200	1-2	8-4
201-500	3-4	18-6
501+	3-1	9-5
Unranked	0-0	4-1

As for the cameras, they are having enough trouble getting them to show up for the Women's matches - let alone the juniors. I'm not that surprised that Japan want to take away the Asian grand slam from Australia - after all, they can't even generate enough local interest to fill the Hisense arena after R4. Could you imagine Wimbledon shutting down #1 court before the quarter finals?

-- Edited by RBBOT on Friday 29th of January 2010 10:00:29 PM

goldfish · Futures qualifying

From radio -

About 1000 crowd

Missed first game, Laura hit game point wide on her serve. Not quite settled and loses serve to deuce.

LR *0-2 KP
LR 0-3* KP serves out with ace
LR *1-3 KP Laura finding her feet, wins to 15
LR 1-4* KP easy service game for KP
LR *1-5 KP loses serve to 15, 'so bad' shouts Robson who is talking to herself (wonder where she got that from!) not playing her best.
LR 1-6* KP Laura saves 1 set point but KP serves ace to win the set

Vamos08 · Intermediate Club Player

Break down in second at 1-2* hmmmm

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Set 2

LR *0-1 KP loses to 30, Pliskova unremarkable but solid
body language not good from LR, hitting long and wide
LR 0-2* KP Pliskova already hit 7 aces and 18 winners, LR 6 winners but 18 errors
LR *1-2 KP latter making few mistakes, first ace from Laura,
LR 1-3* KP Laura constructing points well, but finishing poorly, had break point but drop shot into net and KP served ace on game point
LR *2-3 KP Laura fighting, impressive winner on game point
LR 2-4* KP Excellent serving, calm, nothing remarkable but doing everything well
LR *3-4 KP Laura wins to deuce, ace on game point challenged and out, but next point won
LR 3-5* KP game to deuce, Laura choosing right shots but not executing
LR *4-5 KP 2 aces in this game
LR 5-5* KP 0-15, 0-30 KP no challenges left for dodgy call, 0-40, 15-40 LR challenges incorrectly, game LR to level.
LR *6-5 KP different body language, almost a swagger
LR 6-6* KP ace, KP drop shot into net, return long LR, ace 13, winning return LR, LR nets

-- Edited by goldfish on Saturday 30th of January 2010 05:35:14 AM

goldfish · Futures qualifying

set 2 tie-break

LR *1-0 KP
LR 2-0* KP netted by KP
LR 2-1* KP long lob from LR
LR *3-1 KP long from KP
LR *4-1 KP wide from KP
LR 4-2* KP good angle from KP
LR 4-3* KP LR hits into net
LR *4-4 KP hits long
LR *4-5 KP DF !!!!!
LR 4-6* KP too long
LR 5-6* KP beautiful screamer down the line winner from LR
LR *5-7 KP DF

GSM Pliskova. 6-1 7-6

Laura devastated. 2 DFs at end after great fight back. Very disappointing. LR in tears, head in towel.

-- Edited by goldfish on Saturday 30th of January 2010 05:44:21 AM

-- Edited by goldfish on Saturday 30th of January 2010 05:45:05 AM

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Eurosport matchcast for anyone who wants more detail -

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/tennis/multiplex/32244.html

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Nice try Laura. Runner up twice in a row here.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Sad end to a great month for Laura - possibly one match too many cry

She'll need a break now, but has entered a Grade 2 junior event in Argentina (Feb 22), which precedes the three Grade 1/As which her team indicated she was going to play in order to get to grips with clay. However Laura's post-match interview revealed that the schedule isn't fixed, so we'll see. If her team want her to play French Open qualies, as mentioned on another occasion, then she will have to play a number of WTA/ITF Women's Circuit events in the next 3 months to have a realistic chance of making the cut - and that will be tough to achieve with the proposed junior schedule

Maza1987 · Challenger level

unlucky.
but clearly pliskova was on it today, so well done to her.

indiana · Tennis legend

Pity for Laura, I would really have loved her to get the title after her afforts over the last few weeks. But hopefully, after the initial clear great disappointment she will look back on the many recent positives. I have detected in the past a good attitude in responding to setbacks and coming back strongly next time out.

To my mind, her start to the year has only enhanced my feelings about her future prospects and I look forward to watching her progress over the next year for starters.

Yes, slightly conflicting statements have been coming from her camp. At one moment saying that in the initial part of the year she will concentrate on working on her game and playing juniors given her limited allowed entries for seniors. That at the time made quite a bit of sense to me, grouping her seniors appearances more to later on in the year. On the other hand though, aiming to get into French Qualifying, which as David says will involve picking up really quite signicantly more ranking points, so will need quite a few WTA competitions unless she gets into a really high ranking points tournament and goes a bit mad smile

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 30th of January 2010 05:45:54 PM

philwrig · Hall of fame

Pliskova was outstanding in the first set showing no nerves and serving bomb after bomb. At the outset I thought her movement was likely to be worse than Laura's but she was very adept at making Laura play one extra shot which unfortunately was causing the downfall of Laura as she tended to miss the final ball. Laura was clearly nervous in fact it was clear even whilst they were knocking up as Laura wasn't striking the ball with the level of authority she is capable of. This meant that the Czech was tending to need one less shot to win her points. With the scoreline against Laura started to play even worse hitting unforced error after unforced error which led to the Czech girl winning the first set easily.
The second set started off the same way and at 0-2 I feared the worst but somehow Laura found a way back into this match starting to win her own service games . Roared on by a small but supportive crowd slowly Laura started to make inroads into Pliskova's serve. But at 5-4 down Pliskova surely only needed to do the basics to gain a relatively straightforward victory but Laura roared back to take the next two games only dropping two points . Pliskova now looked the more nervous with errors coming in plentiful supply from her racquet.
In the tie break a key point occurred at 4-1 to Laura when a down the line by cms and then we know about the double faults. But overall the best player won. My firm belief is that as per last year with Pervak Pliskova was not treating the juniors as her main event and so showed no nerves at all as a result.
What somewhat worries me is the British media reaction with an undercurrent suggesting what the hell is she still playing juniors for when she should be concentrating on seniors. They do not understand that she cannot play anymore than 12 senior tournaments and that this year is still about development and slowly gaining confidence playing with the 'big boys'.
At the beginning of this month I firmly believed Laura would never represent Australia but given her positive experiences out their together with our somewhat unknowledgable press trying to advise her on her schedule I do believe the risk of her changing allegiances has increased. I hope thats just me being a worry wart.
Laura has made big strides over the last month suggesting that a big breakthrough is just around the corner todays loss is just a minor setback. Movement issues are being addressed slowly and she is starting to show a stronger mentality. Her net play has improved no end following her doubles play and her fourhand just gets better and better. My only area for concern is her serve which has lost alot of punch since Wimbledon. Hopefully when she gets stronger the power will comeback to that.

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Well the lack of punch in the serve could be due to a slight shoulder problem she apparantly picked up in thw qualifying tournament?

I don't think Laura is going to switch to being an aussie anytime soon, she said in an interview all she wants now is to get home and relax for a bit.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I would like to refer interested posters to this article from Kevin Garside which I believe lacks complete understanding of a junior players development . Fair enough have a go at Andy he knows how to ignore it but a 16 year old girl that is something else.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/australianopen/7109711/Australian-Open-2010-Laura-Robson-loses-girls-final.html

This article was partly edited for the print version on Sunday.
The reference to: 'At the start of the second set a baby lost its composure and started to cry. The thought occurred it might be mimicking Robson, learned behaviour and all that.'

and 'In the crowd a woman collapsed in the heat; a real crisis, a life at risk. Stewards rushed to her aid and eventually led her out of the arena on her feet. Robson was out there in the full bloom of young womanhood playing the game she loves with the sun on her back, something to be enjoyed, surely?'

were both removed probably by the editor. I just think this is rank bad journalism and completely insensitive. Rant over.

DavidC · Tennis legend

Unfortunately Laura's early success has put her in the spotlight for journalists who are trained to write 'juicy' themed stories with purple prose, rather than make any allowances for a teenager growing up . I didn't see the match, but the attitudes reported, exaggerated or not, are often on display in junior girls matches (the reporter would have had a field day with the Les Petits As girls final yesterday).