Mirra Andreeva Did The Inevitable

I can't say that "amount of that dog in them" has always factored into my evaluation of a tennis prospect, but it should, and with Mirra Andreeva, it was always the central factor. In civilian life, being well-adjusted as a good thing, but in tennis, its opposite can be a kind of performance enhancing drug. Back at the 2024 Australian Open, Andreeva was a 16-year-old flying into the fourth round. To get there, she had to make a dramatic comeback from 1-5 down in the third set. During the match she bit her own arm in anger. Noted grit-possessor Andy Murray admired her grit as he watched on TV. Andreeva played astounding tennis, and more astounding still is what she said after, when most players would have been awash in gratitude. “Fourth round is nothing," she said afterwards. "Maybe if I win a Slam, I have to win three more matches, and it’s really tough to win seven matches in a row. I don’t think that I did something incredible. I have time to do it, I hope." From that fearsome moment onward, I knew she would win one of these, and on Saturday, she completed that quest, winning the Roland-Garros title 6-3, 6-2 over Maja Chwalinska. In the years since proclaiming that the fourth round of a major—which would amount to a lifetime accomplishment for the vast majority of tennis players, not least a 16-year-old—was "nothing," Andreeva has only refined her game. Back then she already had the technical and tactical foundation in place, especially her note-perfect backhand, smooth movement, and ability to anticipate her opponent's next play. In the years since, she's become taller and stronger, and the teenage counterpunching has matured into a more assertive game style. On top of the already cunning point construction, she's been able to juice up the groundstrokes; over the last season and change she's even become an excellent server, which is more of less a prerequisite for a multi-Slam champ in the modern game. Andreeva's partnership with Conchita Martinez, herself a former teen prodigy who rose as high as No. 2 in the world, is one of the game's best player-coach relationships to follow. That's because it's hilarious to watch a good-natured personality like Martinez wrangle a pupil as challenging as Andreeva, who admitted once that she can be "a little brat." In recent months the brat-like behavior manifested as a tantrum at Indian Wells that climaxed with her yelling "Fuck you all!" twice at the crowd on her way off the court as a spectator literally clutched at her necklace. Then came a third-round match at Madrid, where she blew a big lead in the deciding tiebreaker and, at the change of ends, told her box, "I’m not a champion. I’m not a champion. I will lose." (She went on to win.)