Just in case Laura Robson didn’t know she was playing a special someone ranked 248 spots higher than her, a reporter pointed it out after her first-round match. The cute, tall Brit let out a cute, small giggle before he could finish his question. Which was, more or less, “Whatever will you do?” Robson half-jokingly said she didn’t want to “give too much away, you know,” but she mentioned a few things. And the youngest woman in the ladies’ draw followed through, playing above her ranking and age, even if it wasn’t enough today against Maria Sharapova, the player many expect to win it all. Sharapova beat Robson, 7-6 (4), 6-3.
It was a high-quality match, the kind fans like to watch even if they’re not rooting for anyone in particular—the kind determined, game after game, not by who doesn’t lose a point but who wins it. Despite big hitting from both, it was a refreshingly clean match, too. Sharapova hit 32 winners and only 15 errors; Robson hit 22 winners and 20 errors.
It was all about Robson at the start. She held after a nine-minute first game in which she saved five break points, aided by effective serves and forceful forehands. In the next game she broke, aided this time by two Sharapova double faults. By the second game Robson had hit six winners. By the fourth game Tracy Austin was saying, “Wow, wow, wow.” Robson raced to a 4-1 lead, while Sharapova raced from corner to corner retrieving big shots.
But after getting a feel for Robson’s hitting and raising her game, Sharapova went on to win an eventual tiebreak and had an easier time in the second set. She started dictating more, but the key was her improved serving, making more first serves and cut back on the double faults. Ultimately, Robson didn’t go away—it's just that more of the Sharapova we know showed up.
This match between a hometown girl and perhaps the best-known female athlete in the world was curiously scheduled on Court 1, rather than Centre Court. But the decision is par for the courts. When it comes to the women, Wimbledon has consistently made scheduling decisions that are bizarre, at best. It’s been most blatant (and disrespectful) with the Williams sisters, but it’s hard to miss in general. And let’s remember that where the tournament schedules the two sisters, who’ve won all but two of the last 11 titles here, says a little something about how they view the other 126 women in the draw. What it says isn’t splendid. Sure, scheduling is a complicated equation with many variables, yet the results of these calculations rarely keep past male winners off Centre Court. You have to think history, if it has access to order of plays and common sense, will laugh at more than a few of Wimbledon’s scheduling decisions.
But back to these women on this day. Robson, who’s had some injuries this year and won her first Grand Slam main draw match ever in the first round, showed how she won the Wimbledon junior title in 2008 and why she still makes the headlines. She can hit big and clean. (Plus she’s composed and has good body language, among other things.) Ask Serena Williams, as someone did yesterday: “First of all, she's a lefty which automatically puts you a step ahead…She hits hard. She has a good serve…And to be so young, I can't believe she's only 17.”
Robson’s opponent, of course, doesn’t need much describing. The whole world knows who she is and what she did at 17. Many think Sharapova can win the title again this year, and she’ll try to get a step closer when she faces Klara Zakopalova in the third round.
—Bobby Chintapalli