On a small court between the main two stadiums on Sunday, a highly-rated prospect strode into the second round at Roland Garros.
Clara Tauson beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2 6-0 in just 68 minutes, firing 18 winners, forcing another 18 from her opponent’s racquet, and keeping her unforced errors to just 10.
Ordinarily, a first-round win by a 127th-ranked qualifier, over an unseeded player, does not especially create ripples.
But Tauson is no ordinary qualifier.
She is a former world No.1 junior and an Australian Open girls’ singles champion. She has risen as high as No.33 in the WTA rankings after already winning two tour-level titles. And had her progress not been derailed by multiple injuries, she would likely have gone even higher.
Tauson is on a four-match winning streak in the French capital, and has won nine of her 11 career matches at Roland Garros. Six of those came in two successful qualifying campaigns, and she is yet to lose in the opening round of the main draw, reaching the second round in 2020, 2021 and 2023. In her 2020 debut, at age 17, she outplayed Jennifer Brady, who just weeks earlier had reached the US Open semifinals.
Her resurgence certainly doesn’t surprise Nicole Pratt, who spoke to ausopen.com from Paris ahead of the tournament and was impressed with what she saw from the 20-year-old Dane.
"I'll tell you who's good? Keep an eye out for her. If she can stay injury-free, it’s Tauson,” said Pratt, coach of Australia’s Billie Jean King Cup team.
“(I saw her practising and) oh wow. The quality of ball-striking is off the chart.
“She's working with Carlos Martinez (who previously coached Svetlana Kuznetsova and Daria Kasatkina) and I just saw him, the structure he's giving her, is really sound.
“But the ball coming off her racquet, wow. It's as big as (Aryna) Sabalenka. And I actually think technically she's better.”
High praise indeed, considering Sabalenka won Australian Open 2023 and is within striking distance of the world No.1 ranking.
Tauson missed AO 2023 due to a foot injury, after a back injury ruled her out of last year’s Roland Garros and forced her to retire during her first-round match at Wimbledon.
But since returning to competition in February, Tauson has gone 24-9, winning an ITF 60K title, going undefeated in Billie Jean King Cup play, and now advancing to the second round in Paris.
Tauson was asked during her press conference what she was most looking forward to in her return to Grand Slam competition. “I think I'm looking forward to playing on some bigger courts,” she replied.
“Even Court 8 here is big for me now. So, yeah, I'm really happy about that. I feel I can play my best tennis on bigger courts. I feel comfortable there.”
She may well get that opportunity when she next faces Leylah Fernandez, a rematch of their Australian Open 2019 junior final.
Fernandez, a fellow 20-year-old and former world No.1 junior, is another player on the comeback trail after ill-timed injuries.
In 2021 the Canadian produced a thrilling run in New York to reach the US Open final, and charged into the Roland Garros quarterfinals last year – only to sustain a foot stress fracture.
This sidelined her for more than two months, and from a peak of world No.13, she has since fallen to No.49.
Fernandez’ upset of 21st seed Magda Linette in the first round at Roland Garros is her biggest win, by opponent’s ranking, this year.
Opportunity knocks for both she and Tauson when they clash for a place in the third round.
“I think I remember (our AO 2019 junior final) a lot. It was a great match. We played each other four times I think in juniors, and she's a great friend,” said Tauson, whose best Grand Slam result was a third-round finish at AO 2022.
“But I also know that she has all the pressure. I mean, she's a US Open finalist, and a top-50 player all the time.
“I think I'm just gonna be happy to be there and see what I can do and hopefully I can do well.”