Rising star Robson marches on into juniors semi-final

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Louise Thomas

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The day after Andy Murray bowed out as the last British representative in the grown-up singles here, Laura Robson announced herself as the next budding talent upon whom a nation can shovel its inflated expectations.

The 14-year-old, born in Australia but resident in London since the age of six, fought her way into the semi-finals of the girls' singles yesterday by coming from a break down in each set to beat Serbia's Bojana Jovanovski, 7-5, 6-4.

Robson has not dropped a set here yet, and one of her scalps was the No 1 seed, Melanie Ouden, who beat her in a warm-up event final just last Saturday.

Taking the stage in the main press conference room for only the second time, Robson – a feisty but well spoken youngster who plays saxophone in her rare spare time – said she was taking steps to mind her on-court language.

"I'm watching what I say because yesterday I made a comment which I shouldn't have about how I thought one of the umpires wasn't really seeing that well," she said. "And then I got a couple of texts after the match saying: 'I don't think you should have said that.' So I have to watch what I say a bit more."

Robson is considered one of the brightest British prospects in her age group; Carl Maes, the LTA's head of women's tennis and a former coach to Kim Clijsters, says Robson hits the ball as well at 14 as Clijsters did. Robson, based at the LTA's National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, now faces Slovakia's Romana Tabakova for a place in tomorrow's final. "If I can win, then that would be amazing. But I must not get ahead of myself. I was looking to reach the quarters. So semis is really, really good."