Mirra Andreeva won the biggest title of her career so far at the Dubai Tennis Championships.
Andreeva made history in Dubai after beating Clara Tauson in the final to win her first WTA 1000 title.
The teenager also overcame two top 10 seeds, including Andreeva beating Iga Swiatek for the first time in her career.
Andreeva had been predicted to achieve big things since her arrival on the WTA Tour at just 15-years-old, and is now at a career-high ranking of world number nine.
After breaking into the top 10 for the first time, Andreeva set herself a ranking goal to achieve by the end of 2025.
Rick Macci has backed Andreeva to achieve that goal and beyond in the future, with Andy Roddick also labelling the Russian as a future world number one.
When speaking on his podcast, Roddick also had big praise for Andreeva’s serve and drew comparisons to Martina Hingis.
“Mirra Andreeva is going to be number one in the world at some point,” said Roddick. “I watched her more this week continuously – because normally it’s in a Slam. But she serves so much better than people give her credit for and it’s only going to get better.
“What I worried about was that she is not one of the physical phenom specimens of a [Jennifer] Capriati or a [Lindsay] Davenport or a Venus [Williams] or a Serena [Williams]. The one I can think of who is a phenom not in the too distant past is [Martina] Hingis, who then got overpowered.
“So Andreeva, is she going to be able to create enough pace to not get overpowered by [Aryna] Sabalenka or Swiatek? She has beaten both of them.
“She is an elite mover already, she creates enough pace and what I am going to talk about that nobody does. Her ability to play against people’s movement makes her shots bigger. She doesn’t have to go big to go through you.
“Her preparation is good enough where she can pull the ripcord and play behind the women that she’s playing against consistently. And if the rally builds she can stay in it and tee up. She has options. IQ beyond her years – Conchita Martinez has done an amazing job guiding the ship. But she serves great.
“I was watching her and thinking why is nobody talking about this? Maybe it is like it can improve things and she has 30% runway in physicality, she is going to get bigger, stronger and faster. It’s not as if it is going to go the other way.”
Andreeva has impressed on all surfaces so far in her young career, with Roddick pointing out how much of a weapon her serve has become.
That was particularly prevalent in her straight sets victory over Swiatek, where Andreeva hit 10 aces compared to just three double faults.
The 17-year-old also had a strong first serve win percentage throughout the Dubai tournament, that averaged at 73%.
Andreeva only dropped one set throughout her run to the Dubai title, with that coming in the only match where she was broken more than twice against Elena Rybakina.
Opponent | Aces | Double Faults | First Serve Percentage | First Serve Win Percentage | Times Broken |
Vs Elina Avanesyan | 0 | 3 | 64 | 71 | 1 |
Vs Marketa Vondrousova | 6 | 7 | 61 | 72 | 2 |
Vs Peyton Stearns | 6 | 7 | 58 | 79 | 1 |
Vs Iga Swiatek | 10 | 3 | 50 | 73 | 1 |
Vs Elena Rybakina | 3 | 8 | 53 | 69 | 3 |
Vs Clara Tauson | 6 | 5 | 63 | 73 | 2 |
Total/Average | 41 | 33 | 58 | 73 | 10 |
After winning the biggest title of her career, Andreeva will head into Indian Wells as a top ten seed for the first time.
Andreeva is likely to improve on her ranking total during the sunshine double, as she will be dropping only 10 points from last year.
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