Laura Robson Excited About Receiving WTA Honor

Written by: Staff on 28th November 2012

Laura Robson Excited About Receiving WTA Honor

epa03381133 Laura Robson of Great Britain hits a return to Samantha Stosur of Australia during their match on the seventh day of the 2012 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 02 September 2012. The US Open runs through Sunday 09 September 2012. EPA/JASON SZENES |

Britain’s Laura Robson has taken time out from her intensive off-season training program as the Chris Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida to express her delight at being named the WTA’s Newcomer Of The Year for her performances in 2012.

The 18 year-old, currently ranked world no.53, narrowly beat her British countrywoman Heather Watson for the honor. This year the 18 year-old, born in Melbourne but based in Wimbledon since childhood, won an Olympic silver medal in the Mixed Doubles alongside Andy Murray, beat former Grand Slam champions Kim Clijsters and Li Na at the US Open and became the first Briton to reach a WTA final in 22 years, only to lose to Su-Wei Hsieh in the final of the GRC Bank International Women’s Open at Guangzhou in China.

Robson, the first Briton to win any form of WTA award since Virginia Wade was named Player Of The Year in 1977, enthused, “It’s a huge honor to have won.

“I looked at the list of past winners and it’s certainly a very impressive line-up that includes many of my idols growing up.”

Former winners of the WTA’s Newcomer award include Clijsters, Maria Sharapova, Venus and Serena Williams, Martina Hingis and Jennifer Capriati.

Robson began 2012 ranked 131st in the world and after qualifying for both the Australian and French Opens, she went on to contest all four majors for the first time and ended the year with a 34-25 winning singles record and $295,908 in prize money.

She is working at the Evert Academy with her Croatian coach Zeljko Krajan and fitness trainer Dejan Bojanovic who previously guided the former world no.1 Dinara Safina. “I hope that I can go on to achieve close to what many of the past winners have achieved in their careers,” concluded Robson.