Chat with Claire Liu: Her Grand Slam breakthrough, blogging and overcoming a tumultuous 2025
WIMBLEDON -- Nine years ago, Claire Liu won the girls' championship at the All England Club in London.
Wimbledon: Scores | Order of play | Draws
Back then, her expectations to play far into the main draws at Grand Slams once she made the switch from juniors to pros were more heightened. But as her WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz pro career has played out since, Liu could not get the past the second round of a Grand Slam.
That changed on Wednesday. Liu's 7-5, 6-3 win over Zeynep Sonmez sent the American into the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time, where she'll face World No. 7 Coco Gauff. Entering Wimbledon, Liu had played 29 major main draws, reaching the second round seven times and falling in the first round 22 times, including 13 first-round main-draw exits and nine qualifying defeats.
"When I was younger, I was definitely more, 'Oh, I got this' kind of when you haven't seen anything, it's like your first time and you don't have anything to go off," Liu said to press Wednesday. "I was pretty confident when I was younger, and it's kind of been something I'm working on to try and develop that back and have more trust and confidence in myself.
"Younger me would have believed it more than now."
Simply, Liu, who came through qualifying, was not expecting this result -- she was forced to checkout of her London hotel Wednesday morning after a couple extensions. In terms of grass-court preparation, she had just one qualifying match in 's-Hertogenbosch that she lost.
"I checked out this morning, and I'm looking or hotels again," Liu said laughing. "I think I'm going to check back into the same hotel, but we'll see. It's a day-by-day thing for sure.
"Usually I'm more prepared, I like to plan things out, but I guess it's been going well so far. My boyfriend was like 'You're still in the tournament. Just because you are packing doesn't mean you are leaving.'"
Reaching a third round of a Grand Slam is common in the sport, and in the long run, may not be career-defining for Liu. But for the 26-year-old ranked No. 146. in the world, the result has added value after a "tumultuous" 2025 year.
One of Liu's hobbies is writing, and she finds an outlet of creative expression through her Substack-blog 'Finding Claire-ity.' In a December 2025 post, titled "The Year of Realizing Stuff," Liu opened up about the difficulties of 2025. Most notably, she found herself internally destroyed after she parted ways with her coach that she had worked with since 2017, describing it is "circumstances that came as a shock to me and left me with no choice."
She had just come back from a hiatus to focus on her mental health, taking the rest of the season off after 2024 Roland Garros. Optimistic about returning in 2025, the split with her coach occurred in January and was a barrier she navigated throughout. Liu also opens up about her battle with perfectionism, and how that played a role in her time in the sport.
Since, Liu found a new coach, Clemens Wagner, through a mutual connection with a data analytics service she uses, and they've been working together since the 2025 US Open. "It's been a good chunk of time, and it's been great," Liu said.
After her win over Sonmez Wednesday, wtatennis.com sat down with Liu, who shared an honest point of view of Grand Slams, overcoming 2025 and her interest in writing.
A 1-on-1 conversation with Liu
Having a blog isn't that common on tour. Why is it a good outlet for you, and where did your interest in writing come from?
Liu: I always wanted to write something, and I journal everyday anyways. I thought it was a good idea to do something instead of the constant loop of like go to site, come back, hotel, dinner, all that stuff.
It's been a really good exercise for me. Journaling does help me sort my thoughts, and the practice of I have a bunch of ideas and I have a lot of thoughts. But having to whittle it down into something that other people can understand is a good practice for me.
I wouldn't say I'm a writer [laughing]. I used journaling to help sort my thoughts when I get anxious before matches and stuff. I always liked the idea of like writing a book or something, and this seemed like a good in between of putting something out that obviously isn't in the form of a huge book.
One of those posts I read was titled "I hate Grand Slams" and discussed your mixed emotions on the event. I recognize this result is one of many, but is the most positive. Has that perspective on Grand Slams changed since?
Liu: I would actually say no, it hasn't changed. It's a really interesting back-and-forth. I think I would write another, why I hate Grand Slams part 2.
It's the dream, everybody wants it. That makes it so much bigger than when it's still just one match. You can just like feel it in the air in the atmosphere and the feeling all of that and then having to bring it back to what's right in front of you is really interesting.
There's still a lot of things that I struggle with, but I mean it's great to still be in a Grand Slam [laughing].
As you wrote in a different blog post, 2025 was a hard year for you. One of those themes in that post was struggling with perfectionism. We're midway through 2026, how do you think this year is going both on and off court, as well as that grapple with perfectionism?
Liu: A lot better.
I've been able to so far play a full season. That's definitely a big positive from last year, I didn't get to play too much. Off court, I feel like last year was really tumultuous, and I had a lot of like things that were out of my control, a lot of uncertainties and I think I've gotten a better base for this year.
[Perfectionism's evolved] more so in the form of control, and how I want to control what happens and control the outcome, and that's not possible in tennis and in life. I think that being able to be okay with the things that I can control and how I do those things has definitely been a big thing, and I feel like I've gotten a lot better.