LAURA ROBSON walked onto Court One with a broad grin, and walked off it with an even broader one, carrying a small silver cup, her reward for winning the Girls’ Singles in three sets, 6-3 3-6 6-1.

Her entrance and exit told a good deal. The first smile showed she was not in the least overawed by her sudden fame, or the surroundings. She was there to enjoy herself and to show that she can really play. The second showed she had done precisely that. If shot-making, cool nerve and match-playing intelligence are what is required to get to the top or thereabouts, her future in the game looks bright indeed.

You had to feel sorry for her opponent, Noppawan Lertcheewakarn, from Thailand, who has the longest name in the championships, but who is hardly bigger than her tennis bag. At 16, she is two years older than Robson, but much smaller and less powerful. She also had 11,000 people in the crowd, less a handful of Thais, right against her, sometimes hysterically so. In the end, she was overawed and overpowered.

The virtues of Robson’s game were immediately apparent as she raced to a 3-0 lead in the first set. Her left-handed service nudged past 100mph, which is the chief reason she can dominate most juniors, and her raking forehand was equally impressive. Those are considerable assets, and the backhand is no weakness.

Lertcheewakarn took three games to get started, but soon levelled the scores. She hits double-handed on both wings, with a forehand that looks cramped and awkward but turned out to be effective.

Soon she exposed the one obvious, and understandable flaw in Robson’s game: her poor lateral movement. Those long legs get her to the ball when it’s wide, but a lack of muscle and spring, which is not surprising given her youth, means that she struggles to get back into position. Worked side to side, she laboured. If Lertcheewakarn could have exploited that more often, she might have won.

It was good, though, that Robson’s ability to cope with setbacks was tested. She weathered the first storm from Lertcheewakarn, stopped the rot that had briefly afflicted her own game, and took the first set with a 102mph serve to the corner.

Double faults and errors from the ground by both players marred the second set, but that was excusable, for the wind was strong and the court badly worn around the baseline. It was tense, with challenges to line-calls from both girls. Robson’s temperament was tested again. She bounced her racket on the court, screamed a very high-pitched scream in her frustration, and struggled to keep the ball in court.

Lertcheewakarn prospered with more accurate ground-strokes and nervously managed to serve out the set after Robson double-faulted to drop her service in the eighth game.

Robson’s response was excellent. “I lost the second set because I started getting annoyed with myself,” she said. “So I sat down and thought, well, if I want to win this, then I’ve got to change my attitude.” She did, immediately raising her game at the start of the final set and moving better.

One superb rally in which Robson managed to defend and regain position with a slow, looped forehand, and then to detonate a devastating forehand to the corner of the court, was especially noteworthy. Similar drives enabled her to break the Thai’s service in the next game and to re-establish command. Clearly, she is an accomplished and doughty match-player.

Only one awkward moment remained, when Robson served a bad double fault — the first delivery almost missed the grass — to lose the third game. After that, with the crowd cheering everything she did, and Lertcheewakarn increasingly forlorn and at a loss, Robson cruised to the title.

The silver cup was presented by Ann Jones, who won the women’s singles in 1969, and naturally the question arises as to whether Robson might achieve as much herself. The answer must be guarded: she has lots of potential. There is also room, and need, for improvement, especially physically.

Above all, Robson has extraordinary poise in one so young. We saw that in an interview when she selected Marat Safin as her preferred companion at the Wimbledon dinner. He might be dangerous but he would surely be more fun than Andy Murray. Unfortunately, the Russian is not available. We saw that poise, too, in her big match yesterday and in her post-match interview, which she handled with casual ease.

It appears that Robson might even have enough poise and ability to thrive despite the best attentions of Her Majesty’s tabloid press and the Lawn Tennis Association. Of course, the new regime at the LTA say that they are thoroughly reformed and will do her nothing but good. We shall see.