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March 2, 2022,
She doesn’t have the weight of a nation on her shoulders.
Yet.
But if Clara Tauson keeps playing like she did at the 2022 Australian Open?
She better get some heavy shoulder pads.
Caroline Wozniacki has long retired. Long live the Danish Queen.
Clara Tauson is just getting started with the great potential for royalty.
Time for some basics.
Clara Tauson is a Danish professional tennis player.
In 2016, at age 13, she became the youngest Danish champion in tennis.
Caroline Wozniacki held the previous record when she won at age 14.
Simply put, today, Caroline is well aware of what Clara is accomplishing.
Caroline
Her career-high rankings, thanks to her powerful performances at the 2022 Australian Open, propelled her to the world’s Number 33 in singles, reached February 2022.
Clara has had two WTA Tour victories both on hardcourt indoor.
Though she has not claimed Caroline Wozniacki’s throne yet, Clara is already a part of Danish tennis royalty. Former tennis player Michael Tauson is her uncle.
As a junior, she played amateur tournaments from 2013 till 2019 and started professional tournaments in 2017.
Drum roll please.
Her best amateur result was girls’ 2019 Australian Open winner.
In her first year as a senior, she won her two first WTA singles titles at the Lyon Open and at Luxembourg Open on top of one Challenger and two ITF tournament wins. At the same time she broke into top 50 on the WTA rankings.
Our Danish star is moving up. Yet, at the 2022 Australian Open, she caught many by surprise.
Clara
As reported by the insiders at tennis.com posted, “Clara Tauson came to Margaret Court Arena with a plan. The Danish teenager brought out the heavy artillery to outgun one of the game’s best ballstrikers in Anett Kontaveit, stunning the No. 6 seed, 6-2, 6-4, hitting 20 winners and five aces.”
Very impressive.
And now, extremely important.
Even in defeat, her later titanic battle with the eventual 2022 Australian Open finalist in America’s Danielle Collins, where she finally succumbed 6-4, 4-6, 5-7, was extremely impressive.
In terms of what’s going on inside of her head, independent.co.uk reveals, “Clara Tauson admits to mixed feelings watching her former junior rivals Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez battling it out for the US Open trophy last year.”
Mixed feelings? She was really happy for them (cough, cough), but of course, wished she could have been holding up the trophy herself.
The team at tennisnow.com adds, “Tauson’s 6-2, 6-4 toppling of sixth-seeded Anett Kontaveit left those in attendance at Margaret Court Arena gasping but it hardly registered with the World No.39, who seemed intent on bottling up her emotions and acting like she’d been there and done that before. The Copenhagen native hasn’t been around the WTA Tour for long, but long enough to know that second-round victories, no matter how satisfying or how big the stage, don’t merit over-the-top celebrations.”
So its chess, not checkers.
Though it is early, we have a sense that the Danish wunderkind has a brilliant chance of holding up the winner’s trophy, on the hard courts at the US Open or Australian. Why?
Based upon her hard striking with the eventual finalist Danielle Collins, a match that could have absolutely gone either way, Clara has the power to make that happen.
Like Caroline didn’t.
Clara is a Power Baseliner. She is able to produce a high number of winners from her forehand and backhand side as well as overpower her opponents. She possesses a reliable serve and good movement on the court as well.
As far as playing styles, Caroline was a defensive baseliner, known for her counterpunching style of play.
Upon her retirement in 2020, she was described by The Guardian as “one of the most defensive players to ever reach No. 1”.
As her game was centered on the retrieval of balls with devastating consistency, her greatest assets on court were her movement, speed, court coverage, aggressive footwork, anticipation, balance, and stamina.
Wonderful skillsets.
Due to the fact that her game was based almost solely on defense, she was referred to as a pusher by critics, and was criticized for her reactive playing style, and lack of major weapons.
Like a powerful forehand.
Femcompetitor Magazine felt that, even though Clara may not possess all of the defensive skills that Caroline does, given how the top ranked players contend, Clara absolutely has a chance to defeat most of them.
In a previous 2022 Australian Open article, the Femcompetitor Magazine writer involved explained, initially referring to the eventual champion Ash Barty, “Her finals opponent in American Danielle Collins pounded Poland’s Iga Swiatek into submission, 6-4, 6-1, in a match where the first set was never in doubt and not as close as the score indicates.
Before this match began, it was obvious that Danielle has too much fire power and passion for Iga to withstand her pounding.
Though highly ranked at number 7 in the world, up to this tournament, one of her best results on the hard courts was the 4th round at the US Open.
Iga won the 2020 French Open, on clay.
We felt that even though Danielle was ranked 27 and Iga 7, this match wasn’t even going to be close.
We attribute this to the Caroline Wozniacki School of point gathering, of which Iga is an exceptional student.
Caroline Wozniacki is a retired Danish professional tennis player.
She has won more than $35 million in prize money. There’s a lot to be said for that.
Known for her footwork and defensive abilities, Ms. Wozniacki won 30 WTA singles titles, including six in both 2010 and 2011, the most in a year by a WTA player from 2008–2011.
Extremely impressive.
In our opinion, here is the most telling accomplishment on her resume.
Caroline was ranked world No. 1 in singles for a total of 71 weeks, including at the end of 2010 and 2011. She achieved the top ranking for the first time on October 11, 2010, becoming the 20th player in the Open Era and the first woman from a Scandinavian country to hold the top position.
Very impressive. It truly is.
On paper.
Why do we say that?
She is number one for 71 weeks, yes, well over a year, including at end of the years of 2010 and 2011.
When did she win her first and only Grand Slam?
In 2020 at the Australian Open.
How can a player be number one for so long but not have a Grand Slam victory trophy on her mantle?
Isn’t that a fair question? Answer?
Point gathering.
She was extremely good at that. Caroline was very consistent and played well at a ton of tournaments, which helped her accumulate a lot of points but at some point, if you truly are number one, shouldn’t you win a Grand Slam during your number one reign?
We would watch her play on the hard courts, unfortunately for Caroline, during the Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova era, and whenever she faced either of those two in a Grand Slam showdown, we knew that number one ranking was completely irrelevant to what was about to happen under the lights.
So now, when Iga faced Danielle, with a much higher ranking, throw that figure out the window.
Proof?
Look at how some of the players ranked above Iga have done at the Slams, on the hard courts. How many times have they lofted a US or Australian Open Grand Slam trophy.
Aryna Sabalenka – 0.
Garbine Muguruza – 1 (2020 Australian Open)
Barbora Krejčíková – 0
Karolína Plíšková – 1 (US Open 2016)
Maria Sakkari – 0
Anett Kontaveit – 0
Paula Badosa – 0
Iga Świątek – 0
And now Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a spot below her- 0.
In fact, Ms. Pavlyuchenkova best results on the hard court Slams are the quarters.
Finally, Ons Jabeur – 0. Best results are the quarters at the 2020 Australian and the third round at the US Open.
So think about it. Of the top 12 ranked players in the world, between all of them, they have only won 2 Grand Slam titles on the hard courts.
Even Ashleigh has no hard court Grand Slam titles on her resume. Her two Grand Slam titles were on grass and clay. She mostly likely will change that in 2022.
Now, drop once more to the next two players, Naomi Osaka and Sofia Kenin and they achieved 5 Grand Slam titles between them on the hard courts.
For emphasis, top 12 – two. Next 2 – five.
What does that tell you about the WTA point system? It does indeed rank players who are very consistent at the Grand Slams but it in no way tells you who are going to win showdowns, especially when these paper Tigresses play fierce power brokers on the hard courts.
America’s Danielle Collins is a fierce power broker.
Coming into the semi-finals, her ranking was not the most telling indicator. It was her power and fierceness that was going to render Iga Swiatek’s number seven ranking meaningless.
So now we have Danielle facing Ashleigh Barty in the finals.”
We get the point.
Clara Tauson is a power broker. Believe it.
She’s not a point gathering but a Hunter Gatherer.
Respectfully speaking, she’s not going to be scrambling at the baseline hoping that her opponent makes a mistake.
This rising star will force the issue, with power.
Which do you want? Someone who is number one with goo gobs of points, but one Grand Slam title or someone with less points but multiple Grand Slam titles on the hard courts?
So, it is always easy to have excessive expectations of a young star.
Here, we feel Clara is the real deal.
Even though they are not screaming and shouting, which from a distance doesn’t appear to be the Danish way, make no mistake about it they are watching Clara Tauson closely and if Clara continues her chess master, power broker meteoric rise, in terms of having the weight and expectations on Denmark on her shoulders?
She had better purchase some shoulder pads.
~ ~ ~
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