Robson backs calls for renaming of Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena
● Kostyuk makes history as Ukraine’s 15-year-old reaches the third round
Laura Robson became the first current player at the Australian Open to advocate renaming Margaret Court Arena.
The former British No 1 believes Court’s outspoken and hugely controversial views about LGBT issues and same-sex marriage do merit action from Tennis Australia andthevictoriangovernment.
Billie Jean King spoke out strongly against Court on the eve of the tournament but players competing in the year’s first grand slam have been reluctant to get involved in the row.
Robson said: “It’s a tough one because she obviously achieved so much but, if someone is being asked to play on that court and they don’t maybe feel comfortable, or people in the crowd feel a little awkward about sitting on there, then people need to have more of a think about it and decide what is best going forward. I would kind of lean towards renaming it.”
Robson has history on the matter after wearing a rainbow hairband during a firstround match on the court six years ago in a show of support for equal rights.
Sadly, her lowly ranking now means she is a long way from playing another match in the arena and yesterday she made an early exit in the women’s doubles alongside American
0 Leigh Griffiths clashes with Astana defender Igor Shitov and, below, Astana’s Twitter post showing the players’ penalty box tussle.
0 Laura Robson plays a return during her first-round doubles defeat with American partner Coco Vandeweghe in Melbourne. Coco Vandeweghe when the pair lost their first-round match against 14th seed partnership Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan and Slovenia’s Katarina Srebotnik 7-6 (7/3), 6-4.
Robson, 23, did not make the women’s singles draw for the first qualifying round of the Australian Open but she was reminded of the rainbow hairband moment this week when one of the ball boys from the match (@mitchgrow) sent her a message on Twitter to say how much it had meant to him.
Robson was thrilled to learn she had made such an impact, saying: “The message he sent me was so sweet. At the time you don’t know if it does anything or if it makes a difference. It seemed like such a minor thing for me to do then, but it obviously made a difference to someone else on that court. It was really lovely that he sent me that message so many years later.”
Robson also recalled the reaction her gesture received back home. She said: “Some of my mum’s older friends were like, ‘Is Laura a lesbian?’ She was like, ‘I’ll have to ask her.’
“It just seemed like a nice thing to do at the time. I didn’t think too much about it before I went on court. It’s so nice, so many years later that someone reaches out to you and says, ‘That actually made a difference’.
The day’s early headlines were written by 15-year-old Marta Kostyuk, who defeated Olivia Rogowska 6-3, 7-5 in the women’s singles to become the youngest player in more than 20 years to reach the third round of a grand slam. The Ukrainian teenager, who was given a wild card into qualifying after winning the junior title last year, is causing quite a stir back home. She said: “I took my phone, and I had to eat at the same time. My mum told me to leave the phone and eat properly. Because I didn’t have a normal breakfast, that’s why I felt quite bad today on court. I didn’t still reply to a lot of people.”
In the third round, Kostyuk will play her fellow Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, who went into the tournament as the joint title favourite but struggled in a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Katerina Siniakova. Speaking about Kostyuk, Svitolina said: “The first time I heard about her was when she won here. It’s good, it’s pretty cool that I’m playing someone from my country. It’s going to be very exciting for me and hopefully I can be ready for that match.”