With the insouciance of a 17-year-old having the time of her life in Paris, Mirra Andreeva says she and her coach work out a game plan before a tennis match - and then she forgets all about that, preferring to just wing it.
PARIS — With the insouciance of a 17-year-old having the time of her life in Paris, Mirra Andreeva says she and her coach work out a game plan before a tennis match — and then she forgets all about that, preferring to just wing it.
“I always play the way I want to play. We have a plan with my coach for the match, but after, I forget everything, and when I play a match, I don’t have any thoughts in my head,” said the 38th-ranked Andreeva, who is based in Cannes and is coached by 1994 Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez. “So maybe I would say that my strength could be that I just play how I want to play and I do whatever I want to do.”The other matchup Thursday will be No. 1 Iga Swiatek against No. 3 Coco Gauff.
So even if she and Martinez go over strategy ahead of time, those tactics are not necessarily implemented.“I decide: ‘Well, what should I do? Should I go down the line or should I do cross? Should I do a drop shot. Should I do a lob?’” said Andreeva, whose sister, 19-year-old Erika, lost to Sabalenka in the first round last week. ”That’s sometimes not really good, because I have a lot of decisions in my mind.
There were plenty of momentum shifts, and the outcome felt in doubt until the very last game, when Andreeva broke with a beautiful lob that Sabalenka didn’t even move to try to get to.Had Sabalenka and Rybakina won, this would have been only the second time in the professional era, which began in 1968, that the women seeded 1-4 all advanced to the semifinals in Paris. The other was way back in 1992.
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