Denied

[King Corey]

THE face of Wimbledon 2008 wasn't Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or the Williams sisters, but an Australian-born schoolgirl.
Laura Robson went from obscurity to Court 1 and the front pages of Britain's newspapers.

The 14-year-old completed her fairytale fortnight by winning the girls' singles title yesterday.

Wimbledon news, views and pictures
The unfortunate news for Australia is that the teenager has lived in Britain since she was six and sees herself as British.

Despite being born in Melbourne, having two Australian parents and relatives that represent Australia in other sports, Robson has vowed she will always fly the Union Jack.

Britain has been so desp erate for a Wimbledon champion - of any sort - the youngster has had the sort of build-up usually reserved for the likes of Tim Henman or current Brit also-ran Andy Murray.

However, she actually delivered.

On the day of their respective finals, Venus and Serena Williams were relegated to the sports sections while Robson appeared on the front pages.

Robson is the first "British" Wimbledon junior champ since Annabel Croft took the title 24 years ago.

Her Australian links have caused some concern, with one cousin representing Australia in kayaking and another in hockey.

Such was the fear Australia could steal Robson, her mother Kathy was forced to last week declare: "Don't worry ... Laura will never play for Australia."

When I see soccer players knocking us back to play for a country their grandfather once farted in, it stings to see it doesn't work the same way in our favour.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/sport/nrl/story/0,26746,23978016-5016380,00.html

 

[wally funk]

australia got handed a couple of birds flying under our flag with tennis this year -Jarmila Gajdosova and Anastasia Rodionova. not exactly superstars but with some minor sucess. if only there was a star who came to play for us, like monica seles crossing to the US back in the mid 90s.

 

[ShearMagic9]

She'll go on to be a nobody.

 

[hong_kong_bond]

She'll go on to be a nobody.

its the British tradition

 

[ShearMagic9]

its the British tradition

Sadly, even though I'm British, it's true

 

[BLPC08]

Juniors means very little in the scheme of things. Remember Todd Reid from Australia - no of course you dont, he didn't amount to anything. Well for those of you who haven't heard of him, he won the Wimby Juniors and was #1 in the world, yet he never cracked the top 100 playing with the big boys and will go down as a player who should/could/would have.

 

[wally funk]

he also appeared in a couple of uncle toby's ads with fellow junior champ sam stosur (who, it should be noted, has made rather a successful transition to the main tour)

 

[BLPC08]

he also appeared in a couple of uncle toby's ads with fellow junior champ sam stosur (who, it should be noted, has made rather a successful transition to the main tour)

So I guess his honours would read as: Appeared in an Uncle Toby's commercial promoting shit tasting muesli, oh and he beat a couple of 12-year old English boys to win the Wimbledon Juniors.