Australian Open 2022: Introducing Clara Tauson
Clara Tauson defeated sixth-seeded Anett Kontaveit in the second-round of the Australian Open in sensational fashion. We take a look at how the Danish tennis prodigy was able to pull off the upset.
G’day mate!1
Has everyone been enjoying the Australian Open?
Of course you have! Who could take their eyes off some of these developing stories?
Barty continues to win in dominant fashion having held her serve 58 consecutive times (last broken by Gauff in Adelaide first-round).
Rybakina, Muguruza and Raducanu lost their matches due to different health issues (Emma sliced her forehand to compensate for blisters - it was actually close and the junkiness of her shots was quite entertaining).
Sabalenka won despite double faulting 19 times.
Anisimova has now beaten Bencic and Osaka, her first and second wins over a top-30 ranked opponent in over a year.
Plenty of stories… but one that’s maybe flown under the radar? The up-and-coming player Clara Tauson defeated Anett Kontaveit losing only six games in the process.
Who is Clara Tauson?
How did she beat Kontaveit?
Here’s an introduction to the Dane and her game!
Clara Tauson’s Background
(basically Wikipedia, I know - skip ahead if you already know who Clara’s history!)
At the 2020 Australian Open, former world #1 Caroline Wozniacki retired from tennis at only 29 years old.
Fortunately for the Danes, a year prior, Wozniacki’s protégé was just beginning her journey at the very same tournament. Clara Tauson defeated Leylah Fernandez to win the junior Australian Open 2019 championships, the following week becoming the first Dane to top the junior world rankings.
Denmark didn’t have to wait long for Tauson to announce herself to the tour. In the first major proceeding Wozniacki’s retirement, Tauson came through qualifying at the 2020 French Open. She defeated Jennifer Brady in a gritty first-round match, saving 17 of the 22 break points she faced, before bowing out to Danielle Collins in the second-round.
She’s progressed rapidly since then. She won her first tour-level titles in Lyon and Luxembourg, earning herself a spot in the top-50.
At only 19 years old, she’s into the third-round of a Slam for the first time having notched her first top-10 win over Anett Kontaveit.
Naturally, there’s a lot of hype surrounding her.
… Are you hyped?
If not, let’s dive into how she beat the Estonian…
How Clara Tauson defeated Anett Kontaveit at the Australian Open
Kontaveit’s Form
To put it lightly, Anett Kontaveit has been in merciless form.
Won 33 of her last 38 matches.
Won 66 of her last 83 matches.
Four titles in her last eight tournaments of 2021.
Summarising the points I made in issue 44 of the blog, Kontaveit’s success was down to the work she’d done with her coach Dmitry Tursunov. They’d worked on controlling her aggression, finding a “more secure way [to be aggressive], not doing too much but being aggressive”.
During her insane run, Kontaveit used repeatable, aggressive patterns of play to win points. The majority of Kontaveit’s winners were coming from her forehand into the ad-court, defaulting to a heavy forehand cross-court and finish into the open ad-court whenever she could.
Repeatable, terrifying aggression from the Estonian’s forehand.
Tauson’s Response
One thing to note: Kontaveit’s flatter forehand grip means she struggles to control the ball somewhat in lively outdoor conditions like the Australian Open’s.
There’s no way the match would have been this one-sided if Kontaveit had been in full flow (there were 16 forehand unforced errors off Kontaveit’s racket to six from Tauson)… that said, Tauson also couldn’t have kept the match so one-sided without perfectly executing a savvy game plan.
The counter to avoid Kontaveit setting up her preferred pattern of play? Go straight into the forehand with plenty of pace. Two things stressed there…
Straight into: Not near the sidelines, straight into the forehand. Take Halep’s point above - she sacrifices some pace for angle to draw Kontaveit out of the court. With the line open and the ball at an attackable speed, Kontaveit unleashes.
Plenty of pace: Self-explanatory. This isn’t a tactic for any old player to execute. Just as well Tauson ain’t any old player - both of Tauson’s groundstrokes pack a ton of pace, Sabalenka-like but the backhand appears more reliable (she doesn’t have the serve Sabalenka possesses2).
Tauson was particularly effective at executing this tactic on return, one of the (if not thee) best aspects of her game.
She won the majority of Kontaveit’s service points, repeatedly sending the return back with interest (she won 62% of her return points when she landed the return in).
If you can jam up the Kontaveit forehand, you will be rewarded repeatedly. Fail to execute and you could pay the price.
Just as well Tauson was ranked #5 in the world for second-serve return points won, unsurprisingly able to avoid these pitfalls more often.
The peak she reached though…
… well that was a little surprising.
When You’re Feeling It…
Somedays you don’t need a gameplan.
After the match, Tauson admitted she’d felt so in the zone that she’d completely abandoned the gameplan devised by her coach.
Tauson’s Australian Open
There are few players that can match the peak that Tauson reached today, her backhand return in particular fizzing onto her Kontaveit’s racket.
“I didn't miss a lot of shots, even though I was going for them on every single shot.”
This may just be a glimpse at her potential, her inexperience possibly stifling her consistency in matches in the near-future.
I could see Tauson avenging her French Open loss to Danielle Collins in the third-round and defeating either Zhang Shuai or Elise Mertens in the fourth sporting this attitude and say 70% of this level of execution. Against (potentially) Halep in the quarters, I’m not so sure, linear strikes not having quite the same effect as they would against Kontaveit.
Simona does have a knack for bringing out the best in players however so…
Whatever happens in this tournament for the former junior world #1, I hope the tennis world have cottoned on by now - keep your eyes on Clara Tauson!
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Sorry!
*the serve Sabalenka normally possesses - she’s been double-faulting a lot recently.