Here is the article on the ITF website. I didn't know that she had been working with Sven Groenefeld. Does anyone know whether this is a temporary arrangement, or whether she has split from Martijn Bok?


Robson holds off McHale

Junior Wimbledon champion Laura Robson of Great Britain managed to battle through a high quality opening round encounter against Christina McHale on Monday, beating the American 75 63 to move through to the second round of the Junior Australian Open.

McHale was unseeded in Melbourne but was no less dangerous an opponent for that. She gained valuable experience after being given a wildcard into the womens main draw where she lost narrowly to Australian Jessica Moore - and was part of the USAs victorious Junior Fed Cup by BNP Paribas team last year. McHale led Robson 5-3 in the first set before the Briton hit back to set up a second round meeting with Kanyapat Narattana of Thailand.

I felt I played a really good match. Tactically I didnt start the way I wanted to but when I went 5-3 down I realised I had to change something and thats what I managed to do, said Robson, who was born in Melbourne but left when she was 18 months old and has lived in the UK since she was four. Christina was in seniors last week and she just managed to lose there. She also got to the final of Orange Bowl so it was a really tough first-round match. Im happy I got through it. In the first set I just realised that she was making more errors on her backhand, so I just tried to feed off that and that seemed to work.

Robson did not play last years Junior US Open and is therefore having her first taste of what it feels like to come into a major tournament as a reigning junior grand slam champion. She admitted that she had felt some jitters last week at the ITF Grade 1 event in Nottinghill but was settling into her status as one of the pre-Australian Open favourites. Last week in a warm-up tournament for this I did feel very nervous going into every match, said Robson. I think thats possibly one of the reasons why I lost in my quarterfinal. This week Ive kind of got nothing to lose because Im not the No.1 seed or anything like that. Ill just go out there and play as well as I can.

Robson turned 15 last week and revealed that she had been promised a very special birthday treat, though she was still waiting to take delivery of it. Coach Sven Groeneveld, who has worked with a string of top players including Ana Ivanovic, has been advising Robson and has pledged to get her a birthday card from her favourite player, Marat Safin. Ill be very excited if I do get that, she said, with a big smile. That would be a highlight.

Laura had three more break points but couldn't convert them. She then held her own serve to love. 3-2*

-- Edited by Peter too at 23:34, 2009-01-26

Laura wins three set points on Narattana's service but fails to convert. She gains two more set points on her own service and takes the first. 6-3 0-0*

Nice first set, needs to power through this second one now.

Ouch. 1-5* now, I think this set is gone.

Laura wakes up and breaks to love 6-3 *2-5 has she left it too late for this set or can she now make it 5 or 6 in a row?

Laura breaks again 6-3 *4-5 She seems to be doing better on her opponent's service than her own in this set, time for some very good serves.