Mirra Andreeva, the Russian teenager who refuses to play tennis her age, knows that monitoring her ranking too closely can lead to all kinds of toxic brain games.
This can lead players to view themselves as numbers rather than human beings. This can lead them to measure results rather than process – tracking movements up and down the ladder rather than how they are improving each day.
This mindset tends to insert itself into the brain at the most inopportune times, sending players down the rabbit hole of the consequences of winning or losing when the outcome is still up for debate, even at crucial moments of a match. while they are supposed to concentrate on hitting the next ball.
As the Madrid Open draws to a close, many of the top players are still alive. This includes Andreeva’s hero, Ons Jabeur, as well as world number 1, Iga Swiatek, and 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. All have fallen victim to rankings obsession at some point in their careers – Swiatek has burst into tears at the announcement of Ash Barty’s retirement when the Australian was world number 1, knowing that it opened a door for her – and all, sometimes, still do.
Sorry: Andreeva can’t do anything about it.
You see, she and her mother, Raisa, who introduced her and her sister to tennis when they were kids in Siberia, struck a deal this year. Andreeva really wants a dog. She noticed a handful of other players were traveling with their dogs. She wants one, really. She claims that it will be a kind of pet that will help her overcome the usual stresses of teenage life and the unusual stresses of teenage life as a budding tennis star.
Her mother, still a tennis mom, saw an opportunity to encourage pet ownership. Make the top 20, she told Mirra, and you can have a dog.
“That’s my goal for this year,” Andreeva said, combining her deadly serious tone with the twinkle in her eye that tells you to add a wink in your mind.
Four months into the season, it looks like Raisa Andreeva will soon be carrying bags of poop in her luggage. Her daughter celebrated her 17th birthday Monday with the kind of victory she’s quickly become known for.
Just when it seems like her (usually much more experienced) opponent has taken control and the ghosts of tales about inexperience and immaturity are becoming a little less nebulous, Andreeva looks down at her shoelaces, chats a little with herself and defeats them.
She’s not just recovering. She comes rushing back.
This time, Jasmine Paolini, the 28-year-old Italian, had the full Andreeva. Paolini, the world No. 13, served through the first set at 5-3, then found herself the target of a flurry of hard, flat backhands and a steady determination that belied her age. About 15 minutes later, Andreeva stole the first set in a tiebreaker. Give him another 30, and it was a straight-sets victory.
“She understands the game very well,” Paolini said of Andreeva at the end. “She looks like she’s not 17.”
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The birthday dinner had to wait, however. Within two hours, Andreeva was back on court for a doubles match with her partner, Vera Zvonareva, who is – wait for it – 22 (!) years older than her. She and Zvonereva lost in straight sets.
The celebrations were not dampened.
She received earrings and a bracelet from her family and another bracelet from her agent. A cake was waiting for him in his hotel room. Life was good.
A little over a year ago, almost no one in tennis had heard of Andreeva. She was 15 and had never played in a WTA Tour event – basic logic suggested she was still far from being able to compete with the best players in the world. She wasn’t even in the top 300.
However, she and her older sister, Erika, are represented by IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate that owns the Madrid Open. That helped her land one of the most coveted entries into the tournament, which organizers often grant to stars who haven’t qualified through their rankings but can help sell tickets, or to prospects who they consider themselves worthy of tasting the big stage.
This last category of players generally does not last very long. Andreeva missed this memo.
She became one of the youngest players to beat a top 20 opponent, Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia. She then did it again in the next match, defeating Poland’s Magda Linette, who was twice her age, and reached the fourth round. A month later, she breezed through qualifying to win a total of five matches at Roland Garros and six at Wimbledon, even though she had almost never set foot on a grass court.
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It’s been quite a year of transition. Andreeva knows this. And yet, somehow, she feels like nothing has really changed.
The most striking thing about the data behind his two runs in the Spanish capital is how similar things are 12 months later – apart from a variation in second serve points and return points won. Andreeva is now better known and her opponents know they have to put her on the back foot when they can.
Andreeva knows she can return the favor – and for longer. In 2023, she won and lost every tournament match in straight sets. This year, she has already won two matches in a single set.
It’s a similar story mentally.
“Inside, I feel the same way,” she says.
The last few weeks have brought a significant change. Andreeva hired Conchita Martinez, the 1994 Wimbledon champion and former coach of Garbine Muguruza, a two-time Grand Slam champion who recently retired. It’s still early, but Andreeva said Martinez is already making her work on a slice backhand, a vital part of the Spaniard’s game. She is still learning how to use it, but she occasionally throws slices to change the pace of points or when playing defense.
Martinez also asks Andreeva to use her Duolingo app on her phone a bit. She already speaks French and English fluently in addition to her native Russian. Spanish comes next.
“Right now, I just know the swear words,” she said.
Andreeva is far from a finished product, physically or mentally. She will undoubtedly become stronger as she becomes an adult.
The mental side also involves its own type of work – work that she already presents. She said that when she lost matches last year, she was basically hoping that her opponent would make a mistake and give her a chance to get back into the match. This season, she told herself to take the initiative, accepting the idea that if she didn’t, she would probably lose.
Yet there is so much new for her, even here in Madrid, where it all began. This is the first tournament where she defends significant points in the rankings. If she hadn’t made it as far as she did last year, she would have gotten even further away from puppy ownership.
It reached number 33 in February and is currently at number 43. She said the pressure to repeat what she did last year in Madrid was weighing on her heading into the tournament.
Then she saw things from another angle: Aryna Sabalenka, the title holder, had to defend a title. All Andreeva had to do was defend three rounds. This is life at the top of professional tennis.
“It’s going to happen every year,” she said. “You can’t run from this.”
She won four matches and reached her first quarter-final in a tournament of this size. Not that she is resting on her laurels. She said she allows herself to enjoy her victories for “about five minutes.” Then she starts thinking about the next match.
After Monday’s roller coaster win over Paolini, in which she stole that first set then nearly coughed up a 5-2 lead in the second before winning 6-4, she found Martinez on the couch in a living room. Martinez told him she was exhausted from the nerves of the afternoon. His hands were trembling. She was so tired she could barely get up.
It was all a big hoot for Andreeva. Sometimes she gets depressed and has to come back; sometimes she’s up and things get complicated. Tennis doesn’t provide much stability, just problems to solve. Swings should be embraced, not avoided.
She may have another problem to solve soon enough: choosing a dog. For the record, her mother was against the idea – but then Andreeva made her listen to her friend and fellow Russian, Anna Kalinskaya, who traveled with her Pomsky, Kobe, and explained to Raisa how a puppy has special calming powers after difficult matches. and could calm the nerves in front of them. Raisa was sold… sort of.
Andreeva wants a cocker spaniel but knows he is too big to carry. She is also determined to adopt a puppy from a shelter.
So much to think about. This is what happens when you get older.
(Top photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)