US Open 2011: Laura Robson qualifies for main draw

Robson won two matches in one day to make the US Open main draw

Britain's number four Laura Robson has qualified for the first round proper of the US Open.

Robson won two matches on Friday to reach the main draw for the first time in her career.

After beating American Taylor Townsend 6-3 4-6 7-6 (7-0), 17-year-old Robson overcame Ling Zhang of Hong Kong 6-4 6-3.

Britain's Naomi Broady lost her final round qualifier in three sets to Stephanie Foretz Gacon.

Broady, from Stockport, won her second-round qualifier, beating 22nd seed Kai-Chen Chang 6-4 5-7 6-3 but could not find a way past Foretz Gacon, ranked 115 places above her.

Robson, ranked 173rd in the world, made only two unforced errors in her win over Zhang, in a match that lasted 80 minutes and will now face Japan's Ayumi Morita in round one at Flushing Meadows.

"It was definitely a pretty good day but a very tiring day, I'm a mixture of happy and exhausted," she said.

"In the second match I was so focused on not letting my tiredness get the better of me that I was playing one point at a time. And if you think like that it's impossible to get nervous.

"The first match was very up and down. She came out there with nothing to lose and she was serving and volleying, mixing it up so much, and you don't see a lot of players who do that these days.

"It was very difficult to play against and I always find it difficult to play against other lefties."

Robson felt her previous near misses at Flushing Meadows had helped her, and she added: "In the past two years I said after my third-round matches that I can only learn from those experiences.

"You've always got to think positively so in my third-round match today I just thought, 'I've been in this situation before, I've got nothing to lose, and I'll just go for it'."

British number two James Ward lost to American Michael Yani in the first round on Tuesday, while Andy Murray, Elena Baltacha, Heather Watson and Anne Keothavong have direct entry into the main draw through their rankings.

The US Tennis Association has cancelled Saturday's Arthur Ashe Kids' Day at Flushing Meadows because of worries about approaching Hurricane Irene.