The junior RG 2025 championship takes the stage

Court 9 at 11:00 a.m., a reasonable hour before the forecast heatwave really sets in. Lilli Tagger, 18 years old, WTA No. 91, coached by Francesca Schiavone, is one of the most captivating breakout players on tour in 2026. Born in Lienz, Austria, she has a one-handed backhand, a real rarity on the women's tour, a technical weapon that naturally generates topspin and angle on clay. Junior Roland-Garros 2025 champion without dropping a set, she is stepping onto a Grand Slam main draw for the first time today, after losing in Q3 at the Australian Open in January. The same Parisian clay she conquered as a junior a year ago, but this time with the grown-ups. Her serve is a real weapon at 3.2 aces per match, and in key moments she has won 66.7% of her tiebreaks on clay in 2026. Behind her serve, she manages pressure with a 59.3% success rate on big points. Her WTA record on clay is still limited in volume, but her qualitative indicators point to a player who knows how to perform when it matters.

Wang Xinyu, 24 years old, WTA No. 32, is on paper the highest-ranked player in this first round. But clay tells a different story: 9–20 in her WTA career on the surface, 2–6 over the last 52 weeks, and three straight losses including a first-round exit in Strasbourg against Boisson last week. Her clay metrics in 2026 are bad everywhere it counts: 0% tiebreaks won on this surface, Match Efficiency at 0.701 below the balance line, and a structural inability to convert in pivotal moments. Her serve holds up better than Tagger’s in terms of service games won, but it’s not enough to compensate for a negative Dominance Efficiency on clay.