WASHINGTON, December 11, 2025 (by Michael Dickens)
What a year it’s been for Austria’s 17-year-old Lilli Tagger. In the span of 12 months, she’s improved her ranking by more than 600 places, going from No. 776 to a career-high ranking of No. 152 on November 24. Also, during the 2025 season, Tagger won a trio of ITF World Tennis Tour titles, and in the same November week in which she made her WTA main draw debut, she also made the final of the same event. What will she do for an encore?
A native of Lienz, Austria, Tagger is the latest edition to the ITF ‘Class of 2025’, joining Canada’s Victoria Mboko and Gilles Arnaud Bailly of Belgium. This week, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) is celebrating the achievements of five players who have enjoyed outstanding results on the ITF World Tennis Tour during the 2025 season. The others will be announced later this week.
Currently ranked No. 153, Tagger’s outstanding 2025 season saw her win three different clay-court titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour and marked her WTA Tour main draw debut as a wild card at Jiangxi in November, becoming the youngest WTA Tour finalist this year.
Get to know Lilli Tagger
From wildcard to finalist — the 17-year-old Austrian is set to play her first-ever WTA final after a sensational debut run!#jiangxiopen pic.twitter.com/FIcIGR3Ui9
— JiangxiOpen (@WTAJiangxiOpen) November 2, 2025
Earlier in 2025, Tagger capped her junior career by winning the Roland-Garros singles title. She was also a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open and Wimbledon Championships junior girls’ singles events.
By winning the French Open junior girls’ title, Tagger became the first Austrian girl to win a Junior Grand Slam singles title and the first Austrian player since Jurgen Melzer in 1999 to win a Junior Grand Slam crown.
“To be honest, at the beginning maybe I didn’t really believe what I could do, but after a period I started to believe more and now I am super happy about what I can do with my life,” Tagger told the ITF website after winning Roland-Garros.
Lilli Tagger wins the Roland-Garros Juniors title #RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/ZT9YtE8Irj
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) June 7, 2025
Tagger compiled an impressive 34-9 win-loss record in ITF/WTA competitions in 2025. She won her first title of the season on clay last March at W35 Terrassa in Spain as a qualifier by stringing together seven straight victories. Later, in September, Tagger won back-to-back W75 titles in Bucharest, Romania and Kursumlijska Banja, Serbia, both on clay. She was also a finalist at W75 Amstetten in Austria on clay in August and reached two semifinals, at W35 Santa Margherita di Pula in Italy, and W75 Vienna in Austria, both on clay.
Back to back W75K titles for 17 year old Lilli Tagger.
She came from a set down to defeat Rada Zolotareva 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 in the Kuršumlijska Banja final.
That’s 3 ITF clay titles this season and a 29-5 clay record in 2025.
Now closing in on a Top 200 debut.
: @ITFTennis pic.twitter.com/yQG5Af95Rq
— edgeAI (@edgeAIapp) September 21, 2025
Then, in November while ranked No. 235, Tagger made her WTA main draw debut in Jiangxi, China, as a wild card. She won four consecutive matches – defeating two Top 100 opponents – and dropped just one set in defeating Zhu Chenting of China, Elisabetta Cocciaretto of Italy, Tamara Korpatsch of Germany and Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland. Against Golubic, serving at 4-5, 0-40, in the final set, Tagger saved triple match point and won 13 consecutive points to win the match.
AN INCREDIBLE COMEBACK
17-year-old Lilli Tagger saves three match points and beats Golubic 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 to reach the final in Jiujiang #JiangxiOpen pic.twitter.com/VnvAEqlpp6
— wta (@WTA) November 1, 2025
Tagger lost to Anna Blinkova of Russia in the title match of the WTA 250 hard court tournament. However, by reaching the final, Tagger (at 17 years and 258 days) became the youngest WTA Tour-level finalist in 2025 and the third 17-year-old to reach a WTA Tour final this year. She also became the youngest singles finalist on the WTA Tour since Mirra Andreeva finished runner-up at Ningbo in October 2024.
“This was an amazing year for me,” Tagger said in a statement. “I played so many tournaments and I’ve had a great time at every tournament on the ITF World Tennis Tour.
“During the year, we worked a lot on my game style and of course we will continue to work on it. I can’t wait to continue next year with the tournaments.”
3 – In the past two decades, Lilli Tagger is now the third player under the age of 18 to reach the final at her first WTA-level event after Donna Vekic (Tashkent 2012) and Olga Danilovic (Moscow 2018). Start! #JiangxiOpen | @WTA pic.twitter.com/egQcDSo0Ge
— OptaAce (@OptaAce) November 1, 2025
Prior to 2025, Tagger played 21 pro events from June 2022 to December 2024. Her best results prior to this year were quarterfinal finishes as a qualifier at W35 Santa Margherita di Pula in Italy in October 2024, and W15 Antalya in Turkey in November 2024.
Now, Tagger is one of four players who began 2025 ranked outside the WTA Top 750 and is now ranked inside the Top 250. She’s enjoyed considerable success on clay and with a stylish one-fisted backhand that is similar to her coach Francesca Schiavone, who won the 2010 French Open women’s singles championship.
“Lilli is disciplined and dedicated to work every single day,” Schiavone said in a statement. “She focuses on improving constantly. She also has fun on court and is enjoying herself despite the intense and hard work that she delivers day in and day out.”
