By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday September 20, 2021
Danish teen Clara Tauson has enjoyed on of the most remarkable seasons on the WTA tour in 2021. Rising from 152 at the end of 2020 to a career-high ranking of 52 today (after claiming her second WTA title in Luxembourg on Sunday), the Dane has won 37 of 50 matches across all levels in 2021. She has also won two 25K titles this January and February, and a 125K title this summer in Chicago, where she defeated Emma Raducanu in the final.
By this time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Tauson, who stands 6’ tall and packs a powerful punch, is becoming a force on tour, but the Dane says she certainly didn’t expect her 2021 campaign to be this successful.
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“I had a weird season, I didn’t expect to be here at all,” she said on Sunday after her 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory over Jelena Ostapenko on Sunday. “I expected that, hopefully, I would move into Top-100, but now it’s almost Top-50, I’m a little bit surprised but super happy about the way I’ve played, especially in recent weeks, I think I’ve improved various things, so I’m looking forward to the next couple of weeks until the end of the season.”
What exactly has Tauson improved? Many things. Physical fitness, for one. And she believes her decision making is also coming along.
“I think I'm playing much more solid now,” she said. “I don't go for stupid things too much anymore, I think it's because I'm really physically fit that I also mentally can stay in the rallies and try to give them one more shot instead of me trying to finish the points all the time and I think that paid off a lot especially this week with me running everywhere, it's not very often you see me everywhere on the court, so it was a new thing for me to try also and it paid off and yes, I think it was really nice to know that I can play these kinds of matches."
So where can fans see Tauson play next? The 18-year-old, who is coached by Olivier Jeunehomme and trains at the Justine Henin Tennis Academy, says she isn’t quite sure how to approach her schedule heading into the last leg of the 2021 season. She says she will likely skip Indian Wells in October in order to play more in Europe, but hasn't made an official decision yet.
“I was already in the US twice this year and it’s a lot of travelling and when you have tournaments in Europe I think it’s okay to stay here,” she said. “I love Europe and I love just driving around to tournaments, but we’ll see, I don’t know right now, but I don’t think so.”