Читать книгу Laura Robson - The Biography - Tina Campanella - Страница 8
ОглавлениеAfter extensive training and nurturing at the hands of some of the greatest tennis players in the world, it was time for Laura to start making a name for herself against her peers.
In 2006, she played in a constant stream of matches and tournaments – national and international – winning and losing and, more importantly, gaining valuable experience along the way. In December, she was lucky enough to enjoy a few weeks of training with the left-handed former American pro Nick Saviano, before heading to Florida to compete in two major junior events.
First up was the Eddie Herr International Championships at the IMG Academy: a competition that had previously served as a springboard to the professional tennis tour for players such as Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick and Anna Kournikova.
This tournament attracts the top junior players from around the world and as such it was an important event for Laura. In the first round, she comfortably beat China’s Yuxuan Zhang, before breezing past Canada’s Michelle Dandik to the quarterfinals. There she faced the USA’s Jacqueline Crawford, where she lost the first set 3-6, but bounced back to win the next two 6-0 and 6-2.
Laura was excited and nervous, but determined to stay focused.
In the semifinals, she faced another American, Julia Jones, and once again lost the first set. But she took the next two sets and found herself facing Jessica Ren in the final. No. 1 seed Ren was a right-handed player from Sheffield who had started playing the game aged seven and was rising through the tennis ranks at the same fast pace as Laura was.
Along with Jessica Ren’s sister, Jennifer, Guernsey girl Heather Watson and sisters Amy and Beth Askew, Jessica was being touted as a possible future British star, and as such would provide stiff competition for the thus far unseeded Laura.
In fact, Jessica and Laura had faced each other a number of times on court already, and Jessica had won at their previous few meetings. Both young hopefuls had played tremendously and their games were usually a close match.
But Laura eventually won 7-6; 7-5 and was pronounced the under-12s winner.
‘I played amazing in the tiebreak,’ a flushed Robson told reporters after the match. ‘I just went for anything and I just didn’t miss. I felt comfortable in the second set knowing that I had just won the first set in a tiebreak. I just had nothing to lose really.’
Talking about her opponent, she said: ‘Last time I played her I was up and she came back. She never stops fighting. It kind of makes you angry at her, but you do realise sometimes that you have to do something else.’
Crediting her trainer Saviano with helping Laura to finally conquer her rival, she explained the work that the pair had been doing together: ‘He was trying to fix my serve and forehand, because they were always flat. He has improved them, because he’s got me to spin and stuff.’
It was clear that Robson had played close attention to post-match interviews and had remained professional in her summary of the game. But she was still a youngster and the telltale signs of her age that crept out during the interview were endearing: Robson told the interviewer that she might go out for dinner that night to celebrate her win, but she definitely wouldn’t be missing training the next day.
‘I just love the game too much to do that,’ she said wistfully. ‘I could never go without tennis for more than a week without missing it.’
A few days before Christmas, Laura found herself competing in the Orange Bowl Junior Tennis tournament, which was seen as the major end-of-year test for up-and-coming players and, as such, was fiercely competitive. Laura powered through the first stages. So did Jessica Ren, who was also competing in the tournament.
By the time Laura and Jessica faced each other in the semifinal, Ren had played seven matches without dropping a set and Laura must have felt nervous. Despite beating her a few weeks before, Ren was still a formidable foe.
Laura started out strong and it was clear that the two players were closely matched.
Robson took the first set 6-4 – the first Ren had lost in the tournament so far. Ren took the second 6-1. The final set was long and tiring and it looked like Laura might just take the game, but Ren came back in the last four from 5-4 down to beat her 7-5.
It was a disappointing loss, especially when Ren then sailed past Germany’s Christina Shakovets to take the title. Jessica was the first British female to ever win the singles title at the Orange Bowl, and the media began to rave about her.
But Laura’s time was coming.
In 2007, Laura began training at the brand-new National Tennis Centre (NTC) in Roehampton, close to her Wimbledon home.
Opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 29 March of the same year, the high-performance centre was a Mecca for tennis training. With sixteen outdoor courts, covering all the Grand Slam surfaces, six indoor courts, a gymnasium, and sports science and medical facilities, it also housed the administration of the LTA, which had previously been based at the Queen’s Club in Kensington. Inspired by the elite national tennis centres in the consistently successful tennis nations of Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, the USA and Switzerland, it was hoped that the new premises would bring about a revolution in British tennis culture.
The huge centre had been commissioned in response to a 1999 review by the LTA into its sustained failure to produce world-class players. In fact, the only British players to make the world top 50 in that decade had been Tim Henman, who did so independently of the LTA system, and Greg Rusedski, who actually learned to play in his native Canada.
Most tennis clubs, including Queen’s, were better known as social clubs for the wealthy rather than centres of sporting excellence. The NTC’s aim was to promote competition over social tennis, and finally begin to produce top-quality British players.
Aside from her activity at the NTC, Laura also spent time learning at The Bisham Abbey Academy, a teaching centre with a national coaching staff of 70, which had a sterling track record for high-performance training.
Laura had so far worked with several coaches, but in the early part of 2007 she chose to train mainly under Martijn Bok. This bespectacled former professional Dutch tennis player was by now an ambitious coach, who prided himself on getting the best out of his players.
Along with head of the LTA, Carl Maes, and head of women’s tennis at the NTC, Nigel Sears, Bok began to prepare Laura for her first tournament on the Junior ITF (International Tennis Federation) Tour. It was the beginning of an intensely demanding year and marked her entry into the serious world of competitive tennis.
Laura’s first match on the Junior ITF Tour took place in May, when she entered the qualifying tournament for the Tennis Sweden Junior Cup. She won two matches to qualify, swiftly followed by two more wins to reach the quarterfinals before she was knocked out.
A month later, she qualified for the Prokom Cup in Poland, and powered her way to the final before losing in three sets to Magda Linette: a right-handed Polish player who was two years her senior. Laura was so angry she threw her runners-up trophy on the floor and smashed it to bits.
It was an ominous sign: Laura definitely needed to work on her composure. Although she was a very talented youngster, Bok could see that her emotions could easily get in the way of her future success.
‘When I first got to work with her I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,’ Bok would recall to the Guardian a year later. ‘She would go insane, really nuts on court.’
Her trainers began to work on her focus and her temper, as well as her tennis technique.
In July, she travelled to Holland, where she won the coveted Windmill Cup. As autumn descended, she flew to Denmark for the HRT (Horhsolm Rungsted Tennisklub) Autumn Cup where she made it as far as the quarterfinals, before immediately heading to Finland for the Nokia Junior Cup.
Showing impressive form, Laura was on a roll. She won three matches in straight sets to qualify, even beating Russian starlet Ksenia Kirillova to reach the final. There she faced Russia’s Polina Rodionova and won.
As 2007 drew to a close, Robson returned to the IMG Academy in Florida to go after another Eddie Herr title – this time in the under-14s category. In the quarterfinals she found herself facing her best pal, Eugenie Bouchard. Robson had met Canadian tennis player Eugenie when they were both nine and the two had quickly become firm friends.
Being of a similar standard and experiencing the same tennis-focused childhood, they both perfectly understood the pressure, excitement and sorrow of pursuing a pre-teen professional career. They had helped to keep each other focused in a competitive world that demanded maturity at a young age. As their friendship and careers had progressed in tandem, they also had fun together on what were often lonely tours, far away from home.
Facing each other professionally on court was another matter entirely. Both girls were competitive and wanted to win, but they didn’t want to lose their friendship because of their rivalry. It was a perfect opportunity to practise the finer points of separating the personal from the professional, and, when Laura triumphed to go through to the semis, there was no drama: Bouchard congratulated her enthusiastically.
Laura beat Jacqueline Crawford, as she had done the previous year, and then cast aside Monica Puig 6-0; 4-6; 6-0 to win the Eddie Herr for the second year running. All in all, she’d had a satisfying and successful first run on the junior circuit. A month later, Laura celebrated her 14th birthday.
With four junior titles and some impressive achievements behind her, she was making headway in her career. But she was still unseeded and relatively unknown.
All that was about to change.
