I was really lucky to survive Las Vegas massacre, says Robson
Laura Robson, the former British No1, spoke for the first time yesterday about the traumatic experience of attending the Route 91 Harvest festival – the country music event that was the target for the biggest peacetime mass shooting in American history.
On Oct 1, a gunman fired from the windows of a neighbouring Las Vegas hotel, killing 58 people and injuring another 546. Robson was unhurt, but admitted yesterday that she had found it hard to work up the courage to leave her front door for the next five days.
Asked if she had recognised the sound of gunfire when it began, Robson said: “I didn’t. I thought it was something on the stage. My friend, one of the girls I was with,
she is from North Carolina, so she was the first one to be like, ‘Hang on here, that is definitely bullets’. There was a guy who used to work for IMG, he was running the event. He was the hero that day.
“We were really, really lucky in that we were off to the side, so you hear everything. But we were on the way out anyway. So many people weren’t lucky. I got a big hug from my mum when she picked me up from the airport the next day.
“From there, I was meant to go home for a while anyway, which was probably a good thing because I just spent five days in the house without leaving. It was a crazy, crazy thing to happen and I got really, really lucky. I don’t really like to think about it.
“It was sweet because when I got home my dogs could sense that I was a bit off, so they just sat on me
for five days. After that, you have to get back to real life and back on the court. I’m definitely a bit more thankful [for things].”
Robson revealed her presence at the festival on her Twitter page the day after the attack, when she posted a message saying: “I’m OK. We were right there… Sounded like fireworks at first then everyone started running. Scary s---.”
Over the past few months, happily, her social-media feed has returned to its staple diet of selfies in a variety of locations: the training court, a mountain overlooking Hong Kong, and, most recently, her sister’s wedding here in Melbourne.
Since she suffered a wrist injury that required tendon surgery in 2014, Robson, 23, has been a fringe player on the professional tennis scene. As a teenager, she was ranked in the top 30, but now stands at 227, which was not quite high enough to earn a spot in the Australian Open’s qualifying event.
She played doubles yesterday with Coco Vandeweghe, but they were unable to beat 14th seeds
Chan Hao-ching and Katarina Srebotnik.
Still, Robson is optimistic about the new season, which finds her reunited with childhood coach Martijn Bok for the first time since 2010. It was under Bok’s guidance that she caused a sensation by winning junior Wimbledon in 2008, aged just 14.
“We stayed in touch the whole time that we were apart,” said Robson, who plans to compete in four second-tier events in Australia before returning to London. “I felt like I was stuck in this spot where I wasn’t getting any better. I couldn’t pinpoint what I was doing wrong, why I was so unhappy in practice and in matches.
“To change my whole scenery and get Martijn back and spend a bit more time with my family at the end of the year, it just made a difference. I’ve felt a lot lighter on court and a lot happier.
“My goal for the end of the year is to be back in the top 100, but really, for me, I want to feel the best possible version of myself again on court. That’s something that’s just not been there the last few years.”
Robson was also asked about her views on Margaret Court Arena, the second-string stadium at Melbourne Park. The choice of name has become controversial since Court herself – a 24-time major champion – became an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage and the LGBT community.
“It’s a tough one,” Robson said, “because she [Court] obviously achieved so much. But if someone is being asked to play on that court and they don’t maybe feel comfortable, then people need to have more of a think about it. I would lean towards renaming it.” Robson wore a rainbow headband while playing on the court in 2012, in a statement of support for those of different sexuality. And this week she received a grateful Twitter message from a ball-boy who had worked on that match.
“It meant the world to me,” he wrote, “as a gay standing on the same court.”
At the time, Robson declined to expand on her reasons for wearing the headband. Yesterday she said: “It just seemed like a nice thing to do at the time. I didn’t think too much about it. It’s so nice, so many years later that someone reaches out to you and says, ‘That actually made a difference’.
“Some of my mum’s older friends were like, ‘Is Laura a lesbian?’” Robson added. “She was like, ‘I’ll have to ask her’.”