British teenagers Stojsavljevic, Klugman a study in contrasts ahead of Wimbledon

LONDON -- Hannah Klugman and Mika Stojsavljevic are both 17-year-old Londoners considered rising stars of British tennis who have received wild cards for Wimbledon 2026, where they will be the two youngest players in the main draw. Both have drawn former Top 5 players in the first round -- on Monday, Klugman will face 2024 champion Barbora Krejcikova while Stojsavljevic will take on No. 11 seed and 2025 semifinalist Belinda Bencic.

That's where the similarities end. As Klugman and Stojsavljevic go about their media duties ahead of this year's tournament, the teenagers are a study in contrasts. Klugman is chatty and expressive, prone to ending her sentences in laughter. Stojsavljevic is more guarded, serious and precise in her answers.

Stojsavljevic has modeled herself after Maria Sharapova -- "I definitely take inspiration from her game, and I just enjoy watching her play," she said -- ever since watching footage of the former World No. 1's Wimbledon triumph in 2004, and this is evident in her easy power and no-holds-barred aggression. Klugman considers herself a "crafty" player in the mold of Ashleigh Barty, fell in love with the game simply through "messing around" on court as a child, and says that one of the biggest challenges of her transition from junior to professional tennis has been putting all the pieces of her game together.

"I feel like I can do a lot," she said. "But sometimes you just don't know what to do. You just feel like you have loads of options and that's kind of the issue."

Their ideal days out in London would be spent at opposite ends of the capital. Stojsavljevic, who is from Ealing, would stick to her home turf of the west to mosey around the coffee shops and picturesque streets of Notting Hill. Klugman, who is from Wimbledon, would head to Borough Market in the south-east, the foodie hub of the city, and get stuck into her favorite Japanese cuisine.

There are further differences. Both have decided to embark on their A-levels -- the final British high-school exams -- rather than drop out of education next year. Stojsavljevic has gone the humanities route -- she has chosen English literature and politics, subjects that she told Vogue earlier this month "are incredibly resonant with the culture and the world right now." At Wimbledon, she named Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner as texts that has recently inspired her.

"And obviously politics is such a broad subject," she said. "I'm still learning so much about it, and just enjoying learning all the new things."

Klugman, meanwhile, has gone down a more scientific path, with maths and biology her chosen subjects -- but she makes a face when asked to explain why.

"The trickiest part of maths?" she said. "Algebra -- honestly, all of it. I don't enjoy any of it."

It transpires that maths and biology are Klugman family traditions: her parents met at Oxford University, where they were both reading maths, and all three of her older sisters studied biology at Edinburgh University. With so much focus on academia around her, it's not surprising that Klugman feels the odd one out sometimes -- her choice of sport even deviates from her sisters' favored hockey -- but as the conversation turns to Serena Williams, the youngest of five sisters, Klugman mulls over whether the "little sister" mindset has spurred her on.

"Everyone says that," she said. "Is there a thing where when you're the youngest sibling, you have a higher chance of doing well? I'll take that. They definitely keep me grounded, though. And they also push me. They want me to do well, they want to see me succeed."

While sport is as important to the Klugman family as academics, the extent to which Hannah's talent has taken her down that path has taken them by surprise.

"That was always the struggle for my mum, in a way, that I played sport," she said. "I mean, they love sport, but they never saw this as something to go professional. It was always recreational. And the better I did, the more my mum started to realize, 'Oh my God, she's now going to have to leave [mainstream] school.' We held off for as long as we could. But I think I'm doing something I love and can do pretty well out of it as well."

That's what the two have in common. Klugman, the 2025 Roland Garros junior runner-up, struggled at ITF level through the first half of 2026 as she tried to add more offense to her game -- but she's hit her stride on grass, claiming her first Top 100 win over Anastasia Zakharova in Nottingham qualifying two weeks ago, then notching her first tour-level victory over Harriet Dart in the main draw. Last week, she pushed another rising teenager, Tereza Valentova, all the way before losing a 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 Eastbourne first-round barnburner; she's now ranked No. 416.

"I think I've really stepped up and something's clicked a little bit in my game where I'm like, 'You have to go for every ball.,'" she said. "I can do that."

Stojsavljevic, the 2024 US Open junior champion, also defeated Zakharova for her first Top 100 win exactly a year earlier, in 2025 Nottingham qualifying -- a match that she had to fit around her GCSE revision and exam schedule.

"Yeah, that happened," she recalled. "I wasn't really thinking during that time. I had so many exams. I think I spent 24 hours in the exam hall. So playing matches was just like freedom."

This year, Stojsavljevic added another Top 100 win, pulling off a 7-6(4), 7-5 triumph over Talia Gibson in April's Billie Jean King Cup Qualifiers to spearhead Great Britain's upset of Australia in Melbourne. Four weeks ago, she reached her first WTA 125 quarterfinal in Birmingham, and her ranking is at No. 276 this week.

As for their big-name encounters on Monday, Stojsavljevic is quick to downplay its significance.

"I'm very excited, but it's just another tennis match," she said.

Klugman, though, was happy to embrace it as a special occasion. She's practised with Krejcikova before, and her confidence has been boosted by hits with Donna Vekic and Amanda Anisimova this week.

"I'm feeling so confident going into my match," she said. "I know I can push these top players. I know my level's there at times -- i's just bringing it constantly.

"With the home crowd, it's definitely in my favor. And I think I do thrive in those kind of conditions, with a big court, big pressure situations."