Last week at the first tournament that Robson played since her victory at the Wimbledon Junior tournament, she faced a player called Nathalie Rooks. To the Dutch audience Rooks is a virtual unknown, with very little to no success in the Dutch national circuit. Despite that, Rooks took Robson apart, beating the 14-year old 6-3 6-0. Rooks then won another match and then lost her quarterfinal 6-4 6-0 against 2nd seed Olga Kalyuzhnaya, who went on to win the tournament. It was clearly a sobering experience for Robson, to whom it will show that there is still a lot of work to be done.

In her first match this week at the Leidse Open Championships Robson faced Jade Schoelink. Schoelink is a 17-year old with a career-high Junior ranking of 690, achieved on the 5th of March 2007. Schoelink attempted to qualify for several futures this year, but failed in every attempt. She had one participation in the main draw of Breda as a lucky loser, but lost in the first round. Beforehand that would have seemed like an opponent that could be beaten by Robson, but after last week’s result it was clear Robson shouldn’t take anything for granted. Something that she clearly did, racing to a 6-0 first set win and then holding off a stronger challenge from Schoelink in the second set: 6-4.

In the second round Robson will be up against 6th seed Steffie Weterings, a 19 year old former Junior with a career-high ranking of 339, achieved on the 24th of January 2005. Weterings attempted 3 times to qualify for Dutch 10.000 tournaments, but fell short in the second round qualifying every time. Weterings has enjoyed some decent success in Dutch tournaments, winning a tournament in the Hague 1.5 weeks ago and is 22nd on the National rankings of the Netherlands.

First round result Hoorn:

Nathalie Rooks (NED) d. Laura Robson (GBR) 6-3 6-0

First round result Leiden:

Laura Robson (GBR) d. Jade Schoelink (NED) 6-0 6-4

Second round draw Leiden:

Steffie Weterings (NED,6) vs. Laura Robson (GBR)