For Tauson, beating World No. 1 Sabalenka was just the start

Clara Tauson had little time to celebrate her win over World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. 

Dubai: Draws | Scores | Order of play 

Sure, it was the 22-year-old Dane's first career win over a reigning No. 1 and boosted her into her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal. But there was more work to do, and Tauson did not want to fall into the tried-and-true pattern of failing to deliver after notching a career-best win.

"I was texting one of my best friends, 'I had a great match today, I'm for sure going to play [bad] tomorrow,'" Tauson said. "But I didn't. I'm really happy about that. Otherwise I would have lost for sure."

Indeed, Tauson followed up her Sabalenka win with a gritty 7-6(4), 6-4 victory against Linda Noskova. Tauson is now into her first WTA 1000 semifinal, where she will face either Karolina Muchova or Sorana Cirstea for a spot in the final.

In retrospect, we probably should have seen this all coming.

Tauson's win over Noskova was her 14th of the year, tying her with Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek for the tour's best mark. She is the only player to crack more than 100 aces this season, with Keys a distant second with 88. In fact, the Tauson holds the mark for the most aces in a single match this year, crushing 26 in her second match of the year against Sofia Kenin in Auckland. 

Speaking of Keys, only one player has defeated the Australian Open champion this year. 

Yep, it's Tauson. 

"If you win a lot of matches, you're going to have confidence," Tauson said. "You can see I hit some lines in the last game. If I was down on confidence, I'm sure I wouldn't have hit those kind of shots serving for the match. But yeah, I feel great. I'm happy to play."

It's all finally coming together for Tauson. She has been a hot prospect ever since word got out in 2016 that a 13-year-old girl broke Caroline Wozniacki's mark to become the nation's youngest champion at the Danish Tennis Championships. The whispers only got louder three years later, when Tauson became Denmark's first Australian Open junior champion and World Junior No. 1. 

Injuries have prevented a more direct ascension on the Hologic WTA Tour, but she's finally seeing the consistency that has eluded her. She opened her year by winning her third career title at the ASB Classic in Auckland and has now made the semifinals or better at three of her five events. That's an impressive achievement made even more remarkable considering she came into the year with three tour-level semifinals in her career. 

"I won a lot of good matches this year and played some good tournaments," Tauson said. "I think the consistency has been very important for me. I don't think I've ever put down these kind of results on this level. So it's really nice for me that I can go out there and play freely.

"I mean, in most matches on this level I'm going to be the underdog. But hopefully soon I'll have a better ranking so the pressure's going to be on me."