Home-crowd favorite, Sloane Stephens, is all set to start her 2024 US Open campaign against France’s Clara Burel. It’s going to be the experience of the 2017 US Open champion versus the flare of the promising youngster. Last year, Burel beat some of the big names in the women’s tennis world to reach the third round of the US Open. It’ll be interesting to see how well she handles the pressure this time against someone like Stephens.

Burel is a 23-year-old tennis player from Rennes, France. She has been playing tennis since the age of six and hard courts are one of her favorite surfaces. During her initial days, she was coached by Alexia Dechaume, but now Victor Prezelin is her current coach. Her mother Stephanie, and father, Vincent have played a crucial role in supporting her pursue her dream. She has two sisters named, Lola and Jade.

Taking a sneak peek at Burel’s career, we can see she has won 4 ITF titles and 1 WTA Challenger title in her singles career. Sloane Stephens’ R1 opponent has been featured in the headlines multiple times in her junior career. She reached the junior singles final at the 2018 AO and 2018 US Open. Burel also won two medals at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018. She was also crowned the ITF Junior Masters girls’ champion in the same year.

After becoming the first French player to win the ITF Junior Masters, Clara Burel said, “It’s my first trophy this year. I’ve had some tough finals and it has been very painful for me to lose every time in the final so I am very happy to get my hands on this trophy. Winning a title will give me a lot of confidence for the next few months and for playing on the Pro Circuit.” In 2019, she made her Grand Slam debut at the AO. Although she made an early exit over there, her overall records at the major events have been quite decent in the last couple of years.

She reached the R3 of the US Open in 2022 and 2023. Then, in this season she also made it through to the third round of the Australian Open. Now, it’ll be interesting to see how far she reaches at this year’s US Open. However, do you know, that Burel has achieved two of her goals this season?

Sloane Stephens’ R1 opponent, Clara Burel fulfilling her dreams in the 2024 season

During an interview in 2023, the youngster said it was her goal to win a WTA 125 title and get into the Top 50. She won her first WTA 125 tournament at the Open Angers Arena Loire in December 2023. Then, in June 2024, she made it through to the Top 50. Although currently she’s ranked 56th in the world, a few months ago she rose to the 42nd spot in the women’s singles ranking. One of her other dreams was to participate in the Paris Olympics, and guess what?

She took part in the Olympics this year, but Burel failed to impress her fans over there. She was knocked out in the first round of the doubles event, but in the singles, she managed to reach the second round. The Frenchwoman has already started to catch some attention in the tennis world with her rapid rise, but who did she look up to while growing up?

According to one of her Instagram posts, she hinted at Elina Svitolina as her tennis idol. Recalling a moment from the 2017 Open de Caen she tagged Svitolina and wrote, “Work until your idols become your rivals. Huge thanks to @opencaen for letting me experience these beautiful emotions.”

Sloane Stephens has faced Clara Burel only once in her career so far. They met each other in the first round of the 2024 Dubai Tennis Championships. Stephens won that match by 6-4, 1-6, 6-2. Who do you think will get the upper hand in this intriguing contest of experience versus the grit of a youngster?