Unrecognizable, passive, resigned

The top 15 is off to a bad start to the season

Clara had an excellent start to her 2025 season, winning Auckland, with a semifinal in Linz, a final in Dubai, then a semifinal in Montreal. And then the momentum faded. It still remains her best season to date, where she came very close to breaking into the top 10. The start of 2026 is the opposite, with a straightforward 2–0 loss to a qualifier. I saw a Clara who was already frustrated, barely moving, with second serves that didn’t look like her at all. Soft, apathetic.

We know Clara doesn’t have the best footwork on the WTA Tour, which she largely compensates for with her serve and a very effective short-point style. She has lost four of her last six tournaments in the first round. Her draw here seems to me to be one of the worst possible for her: a real jinx opponent, with a 3–1 hard-court head-to-head in favor of Tomljanović on the blue surface. Their last meeting was six months ago, in conditions very similar to those in Adelaide, and it ended in the Australian’s favor in three sets.

The local player, for her part, started her season very well, losing by just a hair to the excellent Muchová. Ajla showed a more complete game than usual, still solid in baseline defense of course, but mixing it up more to attack Muchová and taking a lot of initiative. Her post-match interview was interesting, especially when she mentioned that the high ambient humidity didn’t bother her at all and that she handled it perfectly. In short, conditions clearly in her favor.

Clara is likely to be on the back foot if she doesn’t quickly find her serve again, the only real lever she has to keep Ajla at a distance.