Rising tennis star Laura Robson became the first British woman since 1990 to reach a main tour singles final on Friday when she defeated Sorana Cirstea 6-4, 6-2 in the WTA Guangzhou Open. The 18-year-old world No 74 convincingly beat her Romanian opponent in a one-and-a-half hour semi-final in the southern Chinese city.
The Londoner had beaten second seed Zheng Jie of China 6-3, 6-3 to reach the quarter finals, before defeating Zheng's compatriot, seventh seed Peng Shuai 7-5, 5-7, 6-2 in three-and-a-half-hours on Thursday. Robson started brightly in the semi-final, breaking Cirstea's serve at the first attempt before racing to a 5-1 lead within 25 minutes.
The world No 30 then broke Robson's serve twice before Robson broke back at the final game to win the opening set 6-4. The No 1 ranked British player also unsettled third seed Cirstea early in the second set, breaking her first serve before being held to a lengthy tie-break at 4-1. Robson went ahead at 5-1, but Cirstea broke back, before Robson wrapped it up in style by breaking serve again and taking all the points in the final game. The WTA's youngest Top 100 player, who will face Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan in the final on Saturday, will be relieved to have finished the match two hours quicker than her quarter-final epic.