Charlie Robertson faces top seed Nicolai Budkov Kjaer in the last four CREDIT: Getty Images/Matthew Stockman
Murray won the US Open boys’ title in 2008 before going on to land the men’s title four years later
Andy Murray’s 17-year-old protegee, Charlie Robertson, has won through to the semi-finals of the US Open boys’ event and set up a meeting with the top seed, Norway’s Nicolai Budkov Kjaer.
Robertson defeated Switzerland’s Flynn Thomas by a dominant 6-1, 6-2 margin on Thursday, needing only 55 minutes.
His progress was matched on the girls’ side by that of fellow Briton Mika Stojsaveljevic, who backed up her third-round win over Australia’s top seed Emerson Jones by scoring a 6-2, 7-6 win over the United States’ Annika Penickova in their quarter-final.
And Mingge Xu also progressed, after a 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 battle with third seed Tyra Caterina Grant, so making this an exceptionally strong showing for the British juniors in New York, no matter how far the three survivors go on to progress.
Robertson has had a stimulating summer, which included a clay-court training block with Murray in the build-up to the Paris Olympics. A slim figure who stands only 5ft 8in tall, he generates surprising power with his clean technique, but could still do with growing another couple of inches if he wants to compete on the senior tour.
Having spent three years at the Lawn Tennis Association’s National Academy in Stirling – which closed at the end of the last academic year – Robertson has received financial assistance from the LTA in order to attend this tournament, but has also set up a GoFundMe page to help him cover his costs.
He is evaluating his options, which include taking up a tennis scholarship at an American university, but said this week that his preference was to go straight onto the Futures tour.
Murray won the US Open juniors in 2008, but success here is no guarantee of a profitable senior career. Oliver Golding, who won the 2011 event, abandoned his tennis ambitions in 2017 after failing to break into the world’s top 300.
