The American is producing her best level after a rough 2025
The last time Claire Liu came to Roland-Garros on a significant winning streak she was just a junior. The year was 2017, and the Southern California native had won back-to-back 25k titles in Italy before surging into the girls’ final to face fellow American Whitney Osuigwe.
She beat two future Grand Slam champions (Sofia Kenin and Bianca Andreescu) and another future Grand Slam runner-up (Danielle Collins) during the streak.
This year Liu rides a seven-match winning streak into the final round of qualifying in Paris. Does she feel unbeatable?
“I'm trying not to think about it,” Liu told Rolandgarros.com on Wednesday after taking out Poland’s Katarzyna Kawa, 6-3, 6-0. “I'm just taking it one at a time.”
Lui, a former junior No.1, has a substack called “Finding Claire-ity” and it seems that she has located that very same quality in her tennis of late. The 25-year-old world No.182 won her first title in two years earlier this month in Trnava, Slovakia, then climbed back inside the top 200 for the first time since 2024.
The former world No.52 (peak ranking: 2023) says she is just trying to keep things simple.
“Just going in with the same plan, and then if it works out, it works out, and it seems to be working out,” she said. “I'm just trying to be aggressive. Trying to be in control of as many points as possible, no matter who I'm playing.”
Liu’s journey on tour since her junior days has been anything but simple, and one just needs to subscribe to her Substack to find out why.
She had an extremely difficult 2025, ended an eight-year relationship with longtime coach Chris Tontz, and did a lot of soul-searching in the process. She wrote about it in a blog post entitled “The Year of Realizing Stuff.”
“The way I was looking at my career, when I got to the top 100, I thought, ‘Oh, I made it,’” said Liu. “That was my mindset leading up to it. And then I got to the top 100 and I was like, I don't feel like that at all. I still am crying, or freaking out before matches.
“I thought the results would mean something more and then I got there and it didn’t.”
Liu has done plenty of work on herself in the interim, seeing multiple therapists and even experimenting with EMDR therapy (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy).
“I'm still working on it,” she said. “Definitely not nearly there, but it's going in the right direction, which is good.”
One of the subjects of Liu’s therapy sessions? American figure skating hero, Alysa Liu, who won the Olympic gold medal in Torino with one of the most breathtaking performances of recent memory.
Same last name, same career arc?
Not yet, but Liu would like to follow in her fellow Californian’s footsteps by learning to disassociate her sporting results from her happiness more completely.
“Alyssa Liu has been... My God, my hero,” she said. “I kind of hate her and I love her at the same time because I wish I could be like her. I'm so jealous of her. I always thought [separating sporting success and happiness] had to be so hard and she made it look easy. And then I was like, what? That's not supposed to be the way it is!”
Liu has also talked about Liu’s success in therapy sessions.
“The entire time leading up to the Olympics. I was like, there's no way behind the scenes she's actually like this. It was just so incredible. I had many therapy sessions about it, being just in awe. My therapist was like, ‘Think how much work she had to do to be able to do that.’
"She is super strong. Oh my god.”
Having gone through so much personally and professionally, Liu has proven to be quite strong herself. She’s dealt with expectations that come with being a No.1 junior, she’s rocketed into the top 100 and fell back outside the top 400 as recently as last summer.
Now she’s back in Paris, searching for her best tennis, and her best self.
ROLAND-GARROS
18 May - 7 June 2026
