Klugman fired more prominently when, at the age of 14, he won the prestigious Junior Championship of Orange Bowl in Florida in 2023.
Previous winners include French finalist Coco Gauff, as well as Chris Evert, Grand Slam champion Caroline Wozniacki and Bianca Andreescu.
Klugman also played two Grand Slam Girls pairs finals, losing 2023 Wimbledon and this year’s Open Australian trophy matches.
But the 17-year-old defeat by Tagger played well above his 47th junior ranking in the world-completed a hat-trick of unwanted defeats.
Klugman needed to show the fight in the victories in the quarterfinals and the semi-finals, returning from a set before he won it she could not do the same against Tagger.
Tagger was solid from the base line and used its elegant backhand with a hand – an increasingly rare vision – with great effect.
Klugman had interruption points in the first and seventh game of the opening set, but abandoning his own withdrawal in the fourth game proved decisive.
High quality base line exchanges continued on the second set, but Tagger led them to break again at their first opportunity.
From this point, Klugman’s confidence began to drain.
She was 4-0 back after producing a double failure at the interruption point and just won five more points, while Tagger confidently secured the victory.
