5:26pm Wednesday 30th June 2010
By Simon Fitzjohn
Wimbledon’s Laura Robson insists she is not feeling the pressure at SW19 this year and is happy simply concentrating on her tennis.
The 16-year-old, who gave Jelena Jankovic a scare in the first round of the main draw, has moved into the quarter-finals of the junior competition with minimum fuss.
But, despite winning the junior event two years ago and having every move seemingly analysed by the national media, eighth seed Robson is confident she is keeping things on an even keel.
She said: “I actually do not think there is more pressure on me as I did not win the juniors last year.
“I am not one of the high seeds in the juniors this time round so I am just trying to focus match by match really.
“Sometimes it is hard to keep up a level of performance but you have to keep telling yourself that you have to play a lot better in your next game and take things from there.”
In her third-round, 6-4 7-6 win over An-Sophie Mestach on Wednesday, Robson complained about feeling unwell and of having problems with her vision.
But the teenager has no qualms about adding the junior and junior doubles competitions to her appearances in the main draw.
Robson added: “It is a lot different playing junior matches and you have to approach them differently but it is good to get the matches in.
“The senior circuit is obviously the aim but if you lose in the first round it is nice to have the juniors to fall back on.
“The key is to keep winning, and then transfer that to playing more and more senior matches.”
Despite her heavy workload, Robson in fact admitted that her biggest cause for concern is making sure she comes across well in interviews.
She added: “I am a pretty quiet person and at the moment I am just really focused on not saying ‘uhm’.
“I read something on the Wimbledon website - the transcriber said that I start every sentence in interviews with ‘uhm’.
“So at the moment I am putting a lot of effort into not doing that.”
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