Clara Tauson is the WTA World #16, Denmark’s highest-ranked female player in history, and the 2019 Australian Open junior champion.
The Melbourne junior final in January 2019 was played in 34-degree heat, and Tauson, then 16, won it in straight sets with a game that looked nothing like junior tennis. She was flat and aggressive where most juniors spin up for safety. She served into the body at critical moments, a shot that requires reading the opponent’s footwork in advance. She moved well for someone listed at 5’11”, tracking wide balls without losing her court position on the return. She beat the draw. She flew home to Copenhagen and registered that she would need to be more consistent with her first serve if she was going to do anything with it on the professional tour. She was 16. She had just won the Australian Open.
Tauson’s game is structurally different from Holger Rune’s in ways that go beyond the obvious. Rune builds points through spin, angle, and a willingness to defend and then accelerate. Tauson compresses time. At 5’11” she hits the ball early and flat, taking the rise rather than waiting for the ball to drop into the strike zone. The pace she generates does not need to be amplified by topspin because the ball is already moving faster than most opponents expect. Her forehand skids through the court and sits low. Her backhand is clean and increasingly aggressive down the line, a shot she uses to open up the forehand side. Her serve lands deep and moves away from right-handed opponents on the deuce side with a leverage that shorter players simply cannot replicate.
The transition from junior success to professional consistency is the hardest thing in tennis, and Tauson has done it slowly and credibly. Injuries slowed her development in 2021 and 2022, interrupting a ranking climb that looked at one point like it might reach the top 10 faster than anyone expected. She came back both times with the same baseline aggression, the same early-ball timing, the same flat trajectory. The game that won her the Melbourne junior title is the game she plays now, refined rather than rebuilt.
What distinguishes Tauson from Denmark’s other Grand Slam story is that she is a different kind of dangerous. Rune wins matches with personality and improvisation. Tauson wins matches with relentlessness: the same shot, the same depth, the same pace, until the opponent makes an error they cannot explain. On hard courts, where the pace stays low and fast, she is at her most threatening.
Tauson will represent Denmark at all four 2026 Grand Slams: the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open. She returns to Melbourne each January knowing the court, knowing the heat, knowing what it looks like to win there. Check Denmark time for match schedules in local time.