Sheffield teenager Anna Fitzpatrick was narrowly beaten in the semi-finals of the junior girls event at Wimbledon.

The 18-year-old, who spends seven weeks a year training in Monte Carlo, was hoping to become Britain's first junior Wimbledon champion since Annabel Croft in 1984 after toppling fourth seed Ksenia Milevskaya, of Belarus, on her way to the last four.

But she was edged out in today's semi-finals by 16-year-old Urszula Radwanska, the sixth seed from Poland, who overcame a series of tantrums on Court 18 to secure a 7-6 (7-3) 6-3 victory and will meet Madison Brengle, of the United States, in the final.

Fitzpatrick made a tentative start, twice dropping her serve to trail 0-3, but pulled one of the breaks back and, even trailing 3-5 and 0-30, did not stop going for her shots.

When the battling Briton eventually got the set back on serve, Radwanska responded by smashing her racket on the ground as the British girl edged in front for the first time.

However, Fitzpatrick's accuracy deserted her in the tie-break, which the Polish girl took 7-3 to draw first blood.

The Sheffield girl called for a medical time-out to have treatment on her left shoulder before the start of the second set and quickly found herself trailing 0-2 once dropping her serve for a third time.

She retrieved the break immediately, with the aid of a superb backhand crosscourt, but a double fault in her next service game allowed Radwanska to re-establish her advantage and, as hard as she tried, Fitzpatrick could not get back in the match.

Despite her defeat, Fitzpatrick's gritty performance drew the praise of Nigel Sears, the LTA's head of women's tennis.

"Anna has always had great potential and she has shown what she can do," he said.

"I thought she had some momentum after coming from 3-0 down and looked as though she might be in control of the match.

"But she was playing a very tough opponent whose experience showed." Fitzpatrick is part-funded by the LTA and her run to the semi-finals will have put her in the running for a place in Britain's Fed Cup team next year.

Sears added: "She is a very exciting prospect and credit goes to her team in Monte Carlo.

"She has got to learn her trade on the tour and work her way up the through the rankings but I would certainly love to be thinking about her for the future.

"She would at least be in consideration for next year's Fed Cup team, especially as we are looking at the younger element."

Fitzpatrick took heart from her performances at Wimbledon, her last appearance in junior tennis.

"I'm pleased with my performances in every match," she said. "Obviously I'm really disappointed by today but there are a lot of positives I can take from the tournament.

"I was maybe a little nervous at the start but, as soon as I got into it, I was all right and from 3-0 down I managed to turn it around. To be fair, she played pretty good."

Fitzpatrick will play a tournament in Felixstowe next week before setting off on her travels around the world.

She added: "I have three tournaments in Canada, then maybe Russia for a couple, then we're going to do quite a long stint in the States, I think."