[Setsuna.]

Not Hypson. That's for sure.

[EnglishOak]

Originally Posted by LethalLaura

Yes, England would be shut down if she won a slam.

BTW. Are you saying she will NEVER win a slam? Or just not in a few years??

Obviously she will not win a slam before she's 20 years old. But there is still hope. Anything can happen, we can't predict the future. If you really want something you're going to go and get it. And obstacles will eventually move out your way once you're working hard.

Why so obvious? Like you said we can't predict the future. Playing the way she is now she won't win a slam but nobody knows how much she'll improve if she stays injury free. Any young player could make a drastic stride forward.

[NashaMasha]

Originally Posted by EnglishOak

Why so obvious? Like you said we can't predict the future. Playing the way she is now she won't win a slam but nobody knows how much she'll improve if she stays injury free. Any young player could make a drastic stride forward.

pls show me the one who predicted that blond teenager would win at Wimbledon 2004?

[sweetadri06]

Laura has the biggest potential, if she really starts to win titles and regularly go deep in slams...she will be a huge star.

[Gagsquet]

Just read my sig ignorants

[Kotre]

Originally Posted by LethalLaura

BTW. Are you saying she will NEVER win a slam? Or just not in a few years??

If she sticks around for long enough, improves a lot, and avoids players like Serena, she's got a good chance to win one. However, as she is now and without making an Erraniesque leap in terms of results I don't see her being a contender until she's well into her 20s. But then, I could be totally wrong and Laura's first (non ITF 10K) title is AO 2013 . (Spoiler: it won't be)

Originally Posted by Hisagi.

Not Hypson. That's for sure.

One problem. Robson will be a star in no small part because of her hype. If she gets that much attention with so few achievements, imagine how much hype she'll get once she starts actually doing stuff worth giving a shit about.

[Anthony.]

Still sticking with Madison Keys being a multiple-slam star.

[coolfish1103]

Originally Posted by madmax

the reason why young girls can't break through in today's game is well known and discussed to death already - the physicality and experience of older women is too much for them to overcome. The same is happening to ATP tennis as well, with Top players getting older year by year exponentially. Unless some physical freak like Nadull or young fearless ubertalented starlet like Sharapova (the last teenage GS winner) emerges, this trend will continue. Out of the current youngsters, Robson is already too old and her movement and mentality leave a lot to be desired on a tennis court. I'm not familiar with other 14-17 year old girls, since they are ranked too low anyway and can't break that physical barrier of today's tour...

This.

All the girls 20 years old and younger can't do shit to experienced veterans on sight. By the time all the ladies in the late 20s/early 30s retire, these girls will no longer be young enough to provide stellar star results. We won't see another Serena slam result from this group for sure, maybe a Clijsters.

Britain has been long awaiting for a girl to rise but apparently the wrong one came up (Watson). With the Olympics year gone, which is the scramble year for low ranked girls to win titles, 2013 to 2015 is going to be a disaster for the youngsters to win anything. Wait for 2016 for some decent breakthroughs, and Robson/Vekic won't be part of that young group after four years.

[BodyElectric.]

Originally Posted by EnglishOak

Why so obvious?Like you said we can't predict the future. Playing the way she is now she won't win a slam but nobody knows how much she'll improve if she stays injury free. Any young player could make a drastic stride forward.

I'm just trying not to get so deluded...

And you're completely right, no one knows how she'll improve in the next few years so there's still hope.

[BodyElectric.]

Originally Posted by NashaMasha

pls show me the one who predicted that blond teenager would win at Wimbledon 2004?

IKR!

No one expected Masha to beat LordRena in Wimby F 2004, and she did. (Unlikely she will ever again though) but she still did so.

You need the physical attributes to be an amazing female tennis player but you also need the right Mental Strength to prosper and take WTA by storm. Once youngsters coming up realise that, there could be some breakthroughs....

[Chrissie-fan]

I think Laura will have a very good career. Whether she'll be a top 20, top 10 or even a slam winning player remains to be seen. But regardless of that, I don't object to the hype. It's all publicity for the wta and in the end everyone profits from that, because the more attention Robson gets the more attention womens tennis gets. It's all relative anyway and I don't see why you should need to win a slam to get lots of attention. In football the 1000th best player in the world probably gets more attention than even some of the top 10 players get in tennis. I have my newspaper in front of me and like on most days there are about 15 pages about the Belgian competition in there, and to call the Belgian competition a MM competition is the understatement of the century. If they get 15 pages Laura Robson deserves a whole newspaper in comparison.

[jj74]

Originally Posted by NashaMasha

pls show me the one who predicted that blond teenager would win at Wimbledon 2004?

I remember watching that Maria reached the final and thinking, that's really good, but the poor thing is going to be totally destroyed by Serena.

Most players need a good time at the top before being really contenders on GS, but sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes the player just rise her level and grab the opportunity.
I don't know if Laura will win a GS, but i think she will, and maybe it won't need that much time, in tennis things (sometimes) change really fast

[jj74]

And about the physical challenge, i don't agree.
Yes, tennis is more physical right now, so it's more difficult for a teen made good results, but you have Vaidisova's results with 15, 16 or 17 that were impressive, and that wasn't much time ago. Yes, she didn't take the final step, but it's pretty clear that some players have the physical to compete at a very young age.
You even can say the same about men. Most of them are not competitive till 20 (and generally 21 or 22), but Nadal at 17 defeated a lot of top players. And women mature at a younger age.

We can say there's a norm that make more difficult to have impressive results at a young age (but sometimes is not the physical aspect but the mental one, the one who keeps players underperforming till they are more mature) but there can be exceptions

[Monzanator]

So much talk about Robson already And people still question if she becomes the next pin-up girl? Seriously? There's only one answer to that question whether one likes it or not.

[Wilson_07]

Originally Posted by LethalLaura

IKR!

No one expected Masha to beat LordRena in Wimby F 2004, and she did. (Unlikely she will ever again though) but she still did so.

You need the physical attributes to be an amazing female tennis player but you also need the right Mental Strength to prosper and take WTA by storm. Once youngsters coming up realise that, there could be some breakthroughs....

I doubt it's enough to realise something like that though. I think you need to have this kind of mental toughess and believe inside you from the start. Some people grow up and have it and some just don't, I don't believe you can actually learn mental toughness.
There still might be ways to work on it and try to improve it a bit, but if your personality is like that very early on you have an advantage in my opinion.