Bruno Cuaz / Photo credit: ADRIAN DENNIS / AFP
From the height of her 16 years, the Russian Mirra Andreeva, has something to scare her opponents. At Wimbledon, she will play her first round of 16 Grand Slam on Monday… However, three weeks ago, she had never set foot on a lawn.
At Wimbledon, if there are no more French people in the running at the start of this second week, Europe 1 fell in love with the young Russian Mirra Andreeva, 102nd in the world, from qualifying, who will challenge this Monday the American Madison Keys for a place in the quarter-finals.
“She understands tennis, it’s a difficult thing to teach”
She comes from Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, where she was born in 2007. Mirra Andreeva, 16 years old, is 1m78 tall and represents the new nugget of world tennis.
While she lost in the final of the Australian Open in juniors last January, she burns the stages in a few months. First success in Madrid, third round at Roland-Garros, and here she is now in the round of 16 at Wimbledon. She who had never set foot on a grass court before this tournament, which hardly surprises her coach Jean-René Lisnard. “The advantage she has is that she knows how to defend. She controls the ball, she controls her tennis. She knows how to do everything and she has room for improvement on a lot of things. She understands tennis , it’s a difficult thing to teach,” he says.
programmed to win
Big serve, powerful and varied forehand, good defensive play… She shows her ambition to win 25 Grand Slam titles. She explains that she met with herself to put things back in place after her defeat in Paris. Followed like her shadow by the Netflix cameras, she seems programmed to win. A killer from the cold. Women’s tennis has something to tremble with.