It seems likely, you might even say inevitable, that life is never going to be the same again for Laura Robson.

Unless you’ve been on an Apollo space mission for the past couple of weeks, you cannot but fail to have noticed that young Miss Robson is the latest in a long line of tennis players to be taken to the bosom of the British nation and hailed as a future champion.

And all because, at the tender age of 14, she has just won the Junior Girls Championship at Wimbledon, a no-hope wild card entry who not only scattered every seed in her path and beat girls two years her senior, but did so with a level of assurance and maturity far beyond her years.

Now that the first euphoric wave of patriotic fervour has subsided, and the entire British media have enjoyed their weekend of “Glory Laura Hallelujah” flag-waving, perhaps we should take a more clinical look at what this rather special young lady, born in Australia of Australian parents but raised in England since the age of six, can look forward to.

She’s as British as Canadian-born Greg Rusedski and South African-born Kevin Pietersen, so let’s not quibble over the issue of dual nationality. She should enjoy the moment - it probably feels like winning X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent on the same night - but things are about to change dramatically for our Laura.

She has moved from the private sector to the very public sector overnight. She is out in the public domain, under the 24/7 surveillance of the British media, and particularly the "Red Tops" waiting for her to make just one tiny slip, offer up just one indiscretion on which they can feed a voracious appetite for scandal.

She is our first British junior champion since Annabel Croft some 24 years ago, and Annabel is just one of many young girls - including Sam Smith, Sarah Loosemore, Anne Keothavong, Elena Baltacha, Naomi Cavaday and Katie O’Brien - who have been hailed as “one for the future” and then been found wanting.

Such are our disappointments over past failures and our total indifference at those who have flattered to deceive, that we may well be tempted to overlook the fact that we may, at last, have discovered a real national treasure.

Fortunately, Laura is blessed with down-to-earth parents whose encouragement never crosses the borders of demand, who have protected their daughter so diligently and surrounded her with a training and management team offering the right kind of guidance.

Coach, fitness trainer, personal physio, agent and major sponsors are all in place. Home education is an essential, and that’s no bad thing considering the state of many schools in England today.

From now on the going will get really tough if Laura hopes to see her aspirations fulfilled. The burden of expectation, which has proved too heavy for so many in the past, will fall squarely on her young shoulders. She will become an icon of hope and an inspiration to other girls trying to fight their way up that ladder.

Laura’s support team will be aware of the vultures hovering above, waiting to pounce, exploit and get their commercial claws into yet another stunning and extremely talented beauty, just as they have with the apparent endless string of girls from the forced-rhubarb academies of Russia, Serbia and even China.

Surely it isn’t expecting too much of the LTA and other associations, who have spent millions in their search for a British champion, to nurture and protect this 14-year-old prodigy against the many temptations that will be put before her.

I like the look of Laura Robson. She has a brain, she has poise and she has a pleasing demeanour that suggests she will cope with all the pressures. The tennis world is her oyster, and I hope that when she opens that oyster in three of four years' time, she finds a beautiful shimmering pearl.