12 months after making her breakthrough at the Madrid Open, Mirra Andreeva is enjoying more success in the Spanish capital. When she came to the tournament in 2023, Andreeva was just 15 and had never won a WTA Tour match but she stormed into the last 16. Back into the same round again this year, Andreeva showed her charm as she admitted that she sang in her head during matches and had so far only learned “bad words” in Spanish.
Andreeva is celebrating her 17th birthday today at one of her favourite tournaments. The Russian wonderkid has now reached back-to-back fourth rounds at the Madrid Open. She stunned Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova 7-5 6-1 on Sunday, pulling it back after she blew a double-break lead in the first set.
After the match, the world No. 43 made a hilarious admission about what was going on in her brain during the tight moments. “Usually I don’t have much of thought. I’m just, I don’t know, usually it’s just a song that I keep singing in my head and I don’t really think about the match,” she laughed.
“But at that moment I just said myself, Well, you have no other choice than continue playing and that’s it and that’s what I did.” This is the first time that Andreeva has had to defend her first real raking points on the professional circuit and she has done so successfully, matching her result from last year.
The 17-year-old admitted that she initially felt pressure to retain her ranking points from her last outing in Madrid but she changed her mindset with an endearing approach involving reigning champion Aryna Sabalenka. “Before the tournament I had a lot of pressure on me but I created it myself,” Andreeva explained.
“But it helped me because I thought that, well, I mean Aryna Sabalenka, she has to defend a title here. And me, I have to defend just like three rounds. I mean, that’s a big difference. And it’ll happen every year and you cannot hide from that, you cannot run from that. So this is just the thing that I have to accept and that’s it.”
The Madrid Open has already proven to be a special place in Andreeva’s young career, and this year she has been benefitting from having a Spanish coach – 1994 Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez. The teenager explained: “I feel like this is my place of power or something like this.
“I feel pretty confident being around here and playing on these courts. I like the atmosphere, I like the facility, I like the people, everyone is so nice. And especially Conchita, she speaks Spanish so it’s easy. She saddles up everything and I’m like walking behind her and that’s it.”
As for her own attempts at learning Spanish, Andreeva has only gotten so far. “Well I do learn it on Duolingo, I don’t know if I can get some success from that but I try to learn also some Spanish a bit but I know just the bad words for now,” she smiled.
Andreeva will now face world No. 13 Jasmine Paolini as she looks to reach her first big quarter-final. The Russian is also celebrating her birthday on her match day, and she is planning to mark the occasion with a special dinner after getting on the court. She will be hoping that it will be a double celebration if she wins her match.
Speaking after she beat Vondrousova, the teen starlet said: “Well, it is my birthday tomorrow but I don’t really feel like it’s going to be tomorrow because I don’t know. I just don’t feel the way like celebrating, it’s always like this on the tournament.
“So maybe after the matches we will go to the restaurant. And my dad, he will have the birthday with me on the same day tomorrow and unfortunately he will not be able to come, he is with Erica [sister who also plays tennis] in a tournament also in Spain so we will celebrate through FaceTime I guess together. But I’m sure that we will go to the restaurant tomorrow night.”
