Crossword Genius

Success -- the girl's almost top up to now (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

hitherto

'up to now' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'success the girl's almost top' is the wordplay.
'success' becomes 'hit' (hit is a kind of success).
'the girl' becomes 'her' (**).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'top' with its last letter taken off is 'to'.
'hit'+'her'+'to'='HITHERTO'

(Other definitions for hitherto that I've seen before include "Up to this point" , "So far" , "Up till now" , "Up to this time" , "Heretofore (8" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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