Wimbledon 2013: British hopes dashed as Laura Robson's run comes to an end against Kaia Kanepi
Home-favourite is beaten in straight-sets 6-7 5-7 by Kaia Kanepi
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Your support makes all the difference.An afternoon of groans and cheers for a partisan No.1 Court crowd ended with the latter as Laura Robson lost in straight sets to Kaia Kanepi and missed out on a place in the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first time.
It was a typically roller-coaster performance from Robson whose inconsistency drove her to shrieking at the heavens in despair at times. The British No.1 Robson for the first set but was broken, subsequently losing the set on a tie-break that she led 3-0. In the second set Kanepi broke Robson at 5-5 and secured victory with her fifth match point.
At 46 in the world her Estonian opponent is ranked eight place lower but she is far more experienced and, having been a top-20 player, not short of talent. She and Robson traded booking groundstrokes, service aces and double faults, but over the 95 minutes Kanepi was more accurate and less wasteful.
Robson broke in the eighth game to serve for the set but double-faulted en route to an immediate break-back. Having romped to a 3-0 lead in the tie-break Robson slumped to 5-6 with another double-fault en route. A blazing forehand return saved the first set point to roars of acclaim but she then hit both tramlines to concede the tie-break 8-6.
Robson came within an ace, literally, of conceding her first and fourth service game of the second set but salvaged both with thumping serves. Her sixth service game was, though, a disaster conceding it to love. Robson had the courage to save a trio of match points with Kanepi double-faulting on a fourth but the Englishwoman was wrong-footed on the fifth and the game, set and match were up.
The teenager, already the first British woman to survive the opening week since 1998, was bidding to become the first British woman to make a Wimbledon quarter-final since Jo Durie 19 years ago. Instead Kanepi, 28, moves into the last eight for for the second time having reached it as a wildcard in 2010
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