Movement crucial to Robson’s future hopes, says doubles partner Murray

The 18-year-old came of age at the US Open on Wednesday night with victory over Kim Clijsters in the second round in the Belgian’s final professional singles match.

It was by far the biggest win of Robson’s career and took her through to the third round of a grand slam for the first time, where she will play ninth seed and former French Open champion Li Na later today.

Murray is a good person to judge Robson’s game given the pair’s experience of playing mixed doubles together at the Hopman Cup in 2010 and 2011 and at the Olympics earlier this month, where they won a silver medal.

Murray said: “When we were playing I didn’t say too much. We just tried to play and not over-think it so much.

“The one thing (I saw), when I first played with her at the Hopman Cup, she has the potential to move actually fairly well. She moved very well on the court (against Clijsters). But you need to want to chase balls down and believe that you can get to balls, and I think at the Olympics, after the first match or so, she was getting to a lot of balls. She was moving much better than she had in the past.

“She hits the ball great when she’s in a good position. I think if she keeps improving on her movement, she’s going to be a very, very good player. She’s very good already, but she’ll get to the top much quicker.”

Robson, the youngest player in the top 100, has just begun working with Croatia Davis Cup captain Zeljko Krajan, renowned as a coach who works his players very hard and who guided Russia’s Dinara Safina to world No 1.

Murray looked back to his own breakthrough grand slam win, over Andy Roddick at Wimbledon in 2006 when he was 19, and he thinks it can be a landmark moment for Robson.

“It does give you confidence,” he added. “She’s had some close matches against top players before in the slams. She’s played (Maria) Sharapova a couple of times, at Wimbledon and at the Olympics.

“You saw that when she was playing against some of the guys at the Olympics, she was returning the serve with ease sometimes. She’s got very easy power and great timing. It’s just going to take a little while for everything to click together.”

Murray made it through to the third round with much less fanfare on Wednesday night, beating Croatia’s Ivan Dodig 6-2 6-1 6-3 to set up a meeting with 30th seed Feliciano Lopez, who he has beaten in all their six previous meetings, including here last year.

Unheralded Slovakian Martin Klizan caused the shock of the tournament yesterday when he knocked out fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round. The Frenchman, who had been seeded to meet Murray in the quarter-finals, was horribly out of sorts and crashed out 6-4 1-6 6-1 6-3.

Eleventh seed Nicolas Almagro had to fight back from two sets to one down to defeat German Philipp Petzschner 6-3 5-7 5-7 6-4 6-4, while 17th seed Kei Nishikori beat Tim Smyczek of the US 6-2 6-2 6-4.

In the women’s draw, Ana Ivanovic eased into the third round of the US Open with a comfortable 6-2 6-2 win over Sweden’s Sofia Arvidsson.