TENNIS/US OPEN:LAURA ROBSON not only beat Kim Clijsters and sent her into retirement a loser at the end of a hugely distinguished career, she left the former world number one1 baffled as to what went on in their second-round match at the US Open.
The Belgian was moved to observe after failing to impose her will on the teenager in two tie-breaks: “The first hour after the match there was still disappointment and a little bit of frustration.” To do that to a champion takes championship pedigree.
Robson was “sad” it was Clijsters’ last match. “I feel like she is still one of the best players in the world. She has brought so much to female tennis, so it’s tough she is going to retire. I wish her all the best.”
The Briton will not always play as well as this but it is likely, also, that her poor days will be fewer. This is the Robson who twice inconvenienced Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon – except this time she won. Only 18 and not long on the tour, Robson knows now she deserves to be in this company, not something she might have been entirely sure of before. She has more power than most women on the circuit, her serve has been nicely beefed up and her feet are starting to move more freely. It is her self-belief that is as important as any of those more tangible qualities and that will determine where her young career goes from here.
Just as Andy Murray took encouragement from beating Roger Federer to win the Olympic gold medal in a five-set match at Wimbledon, so Robson – who took silver in the mixed doubles with the Scot – will build on her win at Arthur Ashe Stadium. If she can beat Li Na in the next round, probably a tougher assignment than Wednesday’s match given the ninth seed’s run of form, she will start to seriously scare her rivals.
“She moved very well,” said Murray, who saw the end of the first set tie-break and the rest of the match. “She wanted to chase balls down. At the Olympics she was moving much better than she had been, as she did today. She hits the ball great when she’s in good position. If she keeps improving on her movement, she’s going to be a very good player. She’s very good already but she’ll get to the top much quicker.”
For all its flaws – and there were still a few raw, ill-considered swipes here – Robson’s win was different from those that have gone before. This was victory on a grand stage against a grand opponent, a player who is only 29 but is getting out because she craves a family life after a career in which three of her four grand slam titles arrived on this court, most recently two years ago when she came out of her first retirement. It is highly unlikely there will be another comeback.
Certainly, she is not the player she was, as her world ranking of 25 reflects. Yet, the quality is still there, the strokes full of rasping power, the court movement a ballet of energy.
For Clijsters, it is all but over (she has doubles to come), and you could hear the wistfulness in her voice when she said: “It’s been an incredible journey and a lot of dreams for me have come true because of tennis. As a little girl I got tennis rackets under the tree and outfits of Steffi Graf and Monica Seles and I would want to wear them to bed I was so excited. It’s been a crazy rollercoaster.”
While Clijsters has stepped off that rollercoaster, Robson is still very much on it. This win, like that in the girls’ final at Wimbledon four years ago, will live long in her memory: the day she beat a legend in a match that mattered.
