Panna Udvardy’s rise has been meteoric.

A little over 12 months ago, the 23-year-old Hungarian was ranked outside the WTA’s Top 350 – a position she’d occupied, there or thereabouts, for much of the previous three years.

Then came a remarkable 2021 season in which she played 100 matches, won 74 of them, collected five titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour and, simply put, bulldozed her way into the Top 100.

Udvardy, a keen-sports fan with a love for the ocean, attributes her rapid rise to moving to sunny Florida, working with a new coach, and playing “a lot of matches” across the ITF spectrum from W15 through to W100 level, which allowed her to hone her craft in competitive conditions.

“At the beginning I was just getting comfortable playing ITF events, playing good players,” reflected Udvardy at this week’s ITF W100 event in Wiesbaden, Germany. “You get some really good players on the Tour, everyone wants to win, so I had to get used to that.

“In the last couple of years I’ve started working with a British coach, Mark Gellard, and he has helped me a lot mentally and physically to be able to play these tournaments. To be able to play sometimes four or five matches in a row. I think that was mainly the thing that helped me to have the ranking go from 350 to 81.”

Such a rapid rise to cloud nine can bring an equally swift comedown, and Udvardy doesn’t hide from the admission that she has found it tough going since joining the WTA’s double-digit elite.

“At the beginning I was just getting comfortable playing ITF events, playing good players. You get some really good players on the Tour"

Since claiming the biggest title of her career – and cracking the Top 100 as a result at W60 Brasilia last November – Udvardy has suffered 10 first round losses, nine of those at Tour level – including on her Grand Slam debut at this year’s Australian Open.

“I think it’s a combination [of things],” she said, level-headedly, of her recent form. “Obviously the beginning of the year is always very tough. There are very few tournaments so all the tournaments are packed with Top 50, Top 100 players. I had some unlucky draws, playing Azarenka in Australia, playing Sloane Stephens in Miami…. Also I’m still working on my hard court game. Overall I need to get better at believing I’ve made it to the Top 100 and I belong here now.”

Seven of those first round losses this season have come on hard courts. Clay is clearly where Udvardy feels most at home - 66 of her 74 match-wins last year came on the dirt.

“That’s where I like to play most of my tournaments,” she admitted. “But I also really loved the grass season last year. I felt like that was something that, after a week, I could adjust to really well. I’m trying to work on my hard court game as well. I think I could be really good on hard courts too, I just need to find the movement and be aggressive, but obviously these girls are hitting hard so I need to adjust to that speed.”

While this season may not be proving as fruitful as last in terms of results, Udvardy knows her prolific 2021 form was not sustainable. On top of winning four titles at ITF W25 tournaments across the United States, Czech Republic and Brazil, and a fifth at W60 level in Brasilia, she also reached four further finals - including three at ITF W25 level before ending her year win a run to the title match at the WTA 125K Series event in Montevideo.

“I think when you’re on a winning streak it’s almost hard to imagine losing. I went on the court every time thinking ‘okay, I’m going to have to win here’, there’s no way I’m losing"

“I think it really tired me out mentally,” she admitted of her 2021 workload. “In every single match you need to be 100 per cent all the time.

“I think when you’re on a winning streak it’s almost hard to imagine losing. I went on the court every time thinking ‘okay, I’m going to have to win here’, there’s no way I’m losing. Obviously finishing the season Top 100 was a huge bonus, and obviously that was the goal that I was working so hard for.

“When you reach that goal, then you have a little bit of a break in your mind. It’s like, ‘phew, okay, now I can breathe’. It was just a little bit harder to find that mentality again to say, ‘okay, now we’re back at it again and I can win here at the WTA level as well’.”

In managing her transition to the highest level, Udvardy plans to continue to mix up her tournament schedule in the immediate future, gaining both experience on the WTA Tour, and playing as many matches as possible at higher-level ITF events.

“Obviously now everyone wants to beat me because I’m Top 100, and I feel last year I was the one who wanted to beat everyone. It’s a little bit of a different feeling"

“Everyone can play tennis, and at the WTA levels obviously we play some Top 100, sometimes Top 50 players from the first round, so it’s hard to get some confidence and some wins under your belt,” she noted. “I think it’s important to mix it up. My plan is to play another couple of W60s after the French Open.

“Obviously now everyone wants to beat me because I’m Top 100, and I feel last year I was the one who wanted to beat everyone. It’s a little bit of a different feeling. It’s trying to get that confidence back, that winning feeling again.”

Udvardy has provided glimpses of her 2021 dominance this year, going undefeated on her debut for Hungary in the Billie Jean King Cup Group I event in Antalya, where she helped her nation reach November’s play-offs.

“It was my first time playing for Hungary, so it was a huge motivation,” she reflected. “Playing and being able to play as No. 2 was an even better feeling. I was really pumped and I was really happy that I could come away from Antalya with a 100 per cent winning streak.”

When's she's on song, Udvardy is a force to be reckoned with. It can only be a matter of time before things click into place at the highest level.