TENNIS in DEPTH.

British teenager Laura Robson’s is banking on her near miss at reaching the US Open first round to translate into a good run in the junior championship at Flushing Meadows next week.

The 15-year-old former Wimbledon junior champion lost a final-set tiebreaker last night in her final qualifying-round match, beaten 7-6 (8-6) 4-6 7-6 (7-4) by Eva Hrdinova of the Czech Republic.

World number 460 Robson had scored two big upsets in getting to the final qualifying round beating players as many as 300 places above her in the rankings, but came up just short against Hrdinova, ranked 203 and 10 years her senior.

Robson put up a sterling performance to come back from a set and 3-0 down to tie the match and stand on the brink of making the main draw at 4-0 up in the third, only to wilt down the stretch as the more experienced Hrdinova pulled rank.

The teenager is now left to concentrate on her bid for a second junior grand slam title and is determined to take positives from her run in the senior qualifiers.

She said: “The first two matches were good and it was really fun and a really good experience. Only the third set of that match today wasn’t that fun. Well, half of it was.

“I think it’s definitely going to help. I’ll know what the atmosphere and everything’s like when I get to juniors.

“I thought I played really well for all of the matches really, it was just I didn’t finish it off the way that I wanted to.”

She added: “I was lucky enough to get a wild card into qualifying and then I’m just glad that something as unfortunate as this happened in a qualifier now rather than in two years in the main draw.

“It’s all about experience really, dealing with nerves and all that, it’s just something you have to get used to.”

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