Rising British star breaks Coco Gauff record as her impressive growth continues

Kevin Palmer
Hannah Klugman
Hannah Klugman is one of the rising stars of the game

British tennis has some highly promising junior girls rising through the ranks and now one of their emerging pack has made another big breakthrough on the senior stage.

At the age of 14, Hannah Klugman is now one of the most talked about young players in the game, reaching the quarter-finals of the Junior event at the US Open in September.

She is also a multiple British national champion at U16 and U18 level and reached the Final of the Girls’ doubles with partner Isabelle Lacy last summer.

Klugman, who is supported by the LTA’s MWP programme and also trains under coach Ben Haran’s watch at Reeds Academy in Surrey, has climbed to No 16 in the ITF’s Junior rankings and now she has made a big breakthrough at this week’s ITF100 event in Shrewsbury, England.

In just the fourth professional singles appearance of her career, she defeated Czech Aneta Laboutkova 6-2, 6-1 in her opening qualifying match, before seeing off 37-year-old Pemra Ozgen 6-4, 6-3 to reach the main draw.

As a result, she betters the record of reigning US Open women’s singles champion Coco Gauff, who had been the youngest player to qualify for a W100 tournament, going on to reach the quarter-finals at W100 Charleston aged just 15 in 2019.

The W100 event is a tournament just below the WTA Tour level events, with players ranked between 200 and 100 eager to collect points to break into the upper echelons of the game.

Now Klugman is proving she is able to match players who are more than double her age, with the maturity she shows in her game so impressive for a player of her age.

Big-hitting from the back of the court and a solid serve have marked Klugman out as a star of the future, with the British media inevitably comparing her rise to that of Emma Raducanu.

That kind of hype is not welcome for Klugman at this stage of her career, yet she is a young player with immense potential and is part of an impressive collection of junior girls emerging through the British ranks.

Lacy beat Klugman in the U18 Junior Nationals Finals at the LTA’s National Tennis Centre in April and went on to reach the quarter-finals of the W100 event at Surbiton in June, beating world No 95 Madison Brengle in that run.

Mimi Xu is the highest-ranked British player in the ITF Junior rankings, with the Welsh player ranked at No 14 by the ITF after some impressive performances in 2023 that included a big tournament win at an event in China last month.

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Xu also beat Klugman in the Final of an ITF event in Canada last month, highlighting how the British juniors are taking their success on a global stage.

Ranah Stoiber is another British player with big potential and as she is a few years older than Klugman, Xu and Lacy, she will be pushing to break into the senior ranks in the next couple of years.

Mika Stojsavljevic, who trains at the LTA’s National Academy in Loughborough, is another player to watch from an emerging crop of British juniors being led by former British No 1 and LTA Women’s National Coach Katie O’Brien, who believes Emma Raducanu’s 2021 US Open win was a huge source of inspiration for British tennis hopefuls.

“Emma winning the US Open had a hugely positive effect on all our junior girls,” said O’Brien.

“So many of our girls have had great results all over the world and we have a great crop coming through, which bodes well for the future.”