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Ros Satar

Robson & Edmund bow out in Indian Wells first round

Ros Satar
Tennis

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By Ros Satar

  • Guido Pella def. Kyle Edmund 6-7(3) 6-4 7-5
  • Magdalena Rybarikova def. Laura Robson 7-6(3) 6-2

INDIAN WELLS, USA – British campaigns stalled as both Kyle Edmund and Laura Robson stumbled at the BNP Paribas Open.

Britwatch Tennis:

British No. 3 Edmund will rue his chances having been up a set and a break ahead in the decider and in a position to serve for the match over Argentina’s Guido Pella. Broken twice in succession, the momentum of the match swiftly tilted in the Argentine’s favour, as he won four games on the run to end the Brit’s hopes.

For Robson, there were signs of the defiant brilliance we saw in her as a promising junior and early in her senior career before a wrist injury sent her ranking spiraling over the last couple of years. In a first service game she herself described as ‘ugly,’ she threw in five double-faults to hand away the break to Magdalena Rybarikova before a flurry of breaks at the end of the set forced a tie-break.

Rybarikova quickly built up a head of steam to take the set, and from there was in control as she leapt out to a 4-1 lead, that was just too hard for Robson to rally from. After the match, she was candid about how she viewed her comeback, admitting this was the healthiest she had felt since even at the US Open last year.

She surmised: “To come out here and kind of do what I’ve been doing in practice and put it on the match court – the serve was a big improvement for me even through there was that 5 double faults at the start.

“It’s been the hardest thing for me to translate what I’ve been doing on practice courts into matches so I was pretty happy with that, and everything else can definitely be worked on. Feeling confident enough in the rally to move up the court, and finish more shots with drive volleys, volleys, everything, getting that variation into my game, and obviously the forehand was a bit messy.

“It’s all stuff that can be improved and that’s the good thing about it. As long as I’m healthy, I can train as much as possible and get as much work in.”

Robson entered Indian Wells on her Protected Ranking but told us that time is running out, with regards to using them up.

She said: “My protected [ranking] runs out in Eastbourne, so I’d kind of be an idiot not to use all of them before then. You know as much as I’d like to get more matches in at a qualifying level and things like that, yeah it’d be a waste to not use them, so I plan to play virtually all the clay season, Paris, and I think I’ll still have one left for the first week of the grass.”

Robson will head to Florida to prepare for the next tournament in Miami.