Three former junior world No. 1s in Oeiras draw as tennis returns

Former junior world No. 1s Clara Tauson, Diane Parry and Clara Burel will all feature at the W15 Oeiras tournament next week as the ITF World Tennis Tour marks its return from a five-month hiatus with a talented young field on the Portuguese coast.

The clay court event, which joins M25 Vogau as one of two tournaments taking place on the World Tennis Tour next week after a five-month hiatus as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, features a strong field given its status at the lower end of the prize-money scale, featuring six of the world’s Top 300 and some of the Tour’s rising stars.

Tauson and Parry, both 17, are fresh from some landmark triumphs on the junior tour, with the Dane collecting the girls’ singles title at the 2019 Australian Open, while Frenchwoman Parry went on to win the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals in October.

Where Tauson is already making rapid progress in the professional game, scooping an impressive six titles on the World Tennis Tour – including two at W60 level in Shenzhen, China and Meitar, Israel last year -  Parry is seeking her first professional title. Her best results on the tour to date include two semi-final runs – on home soil at W25 Montpellier last June and at W25 Las Vegas in March.

Parry’s compatriot Burel, also a former champion at the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals having secured the prestigious year-end junior crown in Chengdu in 2018, won her first professional title at W25 Grenoble at the turn of the year, and was denied the chance of an immediate repeat when she retired injured against Tauson at W25 Glasgow the following week.

Spanish world No. 176 Cristina Bucsa, 22, will lead the field as top seed in Oeiras, with the 22-year-old eyeing a fifth professional singles title and first since she won W60 Nantes in November.

Discover more about the M25 Vogau men's event taking place next week, here.