Lilli Tagger is set to break into the WTA top 100 after the 18-year-old Austrian beat Paula Badosa 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) and then upset third seed Liudmilla Samsonova at the Linz Open.
The wildcard entry from Lienz, Austria, is scheduled to meet fellow Austrian Anastasia Potapova next, with her latest run in Linz pushing her ranking into territory that seemed distant only months ago. Tagger started the 2025 season at No. 773 and finished it at No. 159, before this week’s results lifted her to the brink of the top 100.
The scale of the climb is the story. Four months into the 2026 campaign, Tagger is on course to move into the top 100 after a year that has already taken her from junior promise to a player who can beat established names on the WTA Tour. She was born on 17 February 2008 and has become one of the quickest risers in the game after beginning 2025 outside the top 700.
Tagger’s Linz breakthrough adds to a 2025 season that already included a first ITF Circuit singles title in Terrassa, Spain, where she beat Lois Boisson in the final, and a junior Grand Slam title at the French Open. In that Paris run, she did not drop a set and beat Hannah Klugman 6-2, 6-0 to become the first Austrian player to win a junior girls’ singles Grand Slam title.
Her rise continued in November at the Jiangxi Open, where she made her WTA Tour debut on a wildcard and became the first player born in 2008 to reach a WTA final. She lost that final to Anna Blinkova, but the run still sent her from No. 235 to No. 156 in the rankings.
Tagger has also won three more ITF titles since her breakthrough, and her development has been shaped in Varese, Italy, where she has been part of the Schiavone Team Lab since the age of 15. She is currently mentored by Francesca Schiavone and Lorenzo Frigerio, and Tagger has said Schiavone helps most with the mental side of the game while understanding her style, including her one-handed backhand.
The gap between where she was and where she is now is what makes the Linz run stand out. Tagger said she would not have believed 12 months earlier that this is where she would be, and the results in Austria now put a top-100 debut within reach if she keeps winning in Linz.
