Tagger, 18, thrills Linz crowd with first-round upset of Badosa
Austrian sensation Lilli Tagger scored another milestone in her rapid rise to the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz on Tuesday. In front of her home crowd, the 18-year-old wild card upset Paula Badosa 6-4, 7-6(5) in 2 hours and 7 minutes in the Upper Austria Ladies Linz first round.
Linz: Scores | Draws | Order of play
Tagger is ranked just 15 places beneath Badosa this week, at No. 117 to the Spaniard's No. 102, but the result is her first career victory over an opponent who has been ranked in the Top 10. It's come in just her third career WTA main draw -- on her debut in Jiujiang last October, Tagger went all the way to the final. As a wild card in Miami last month, she saved match point against Ella Seidel to notch her first WTA 1000 win.
This time last year, Tagger was ranked No. 566, and she still had her greatest junior successes ahead of her -- last summer saw her claim the Roland Garros girls' title and the junior No. 1 ranking. Along the way, she drew plaudits for her rare single-handed backhand -- a shot that was on song against Badosa, particularly in clutch moments.
A match of two halves
For a set-and-a-half, Tagger's aesthetically pleasing style was the star of the show. The one-hander may get all the attention, but the teenager demonstrated that her game is the full package as she fired winners from the forehand too (tallying 27 in total), reeled off free points on her serve and won 10 out of 15 points at net.
But closing out the match required grit, not just style. With Tagger cruising at 6-4, 4-0, Badosa began to raise her level. A pair of forehand winners -- accompanied by vocal exhortations -- got one of the breaks back, and a scorcher of a backhand winner paved the way to levelling at 5-5.
Tagger came up with another slew of winners to break again for 6-5, but was again unable to seal the deal, sending a backhand wide down break point. But her approach to the match didn't waver, despite Badosa's late charge.
"I honestly was a bit tight at the end," Tagger said in her on-court interview. "It's never easy but when there are close points, important points, I try to keep going with the process, play my game. It's not all the time very easy, but it works so I try to do it."
In the tiebreak, that's exactly what she managed. Tagger went back to basics and protected her serve efficiently, coming up with solid one-two punches to win the first four points behind it. With Badosa also serving well, the first nine points all went to the server.
Down 5-4 and two points from being forced into a decider, Tagger didn't blink. She slammed down an unreturnable serve out wide and then held firm as Badosa committed a pair of forehand errors to end the match.
Tagger will next face No. 3 seed Liudmila Samsonova -- her second career encounter with a Top 30 player following her 6-3, 6-3 loss to Ekaterina Alexandrova in the Miami second round.