Seventeen-year-old Mirra Andreeva is on the rise on the WTA Tour, and even the defending champion couldn’t stop her from getting to the final of the BNP Paribas Open.
The ninth-seeded Russian upset second-seeded Iga Swiatek of Poland 7-6 (1), 1-6, 6-3 on Friday in Indian Wells, Calif.
Andreeva’s opponent in the final will be top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, who routed fifth-seeded Madison Keys of the United States 6-0, 6-1.
Andreeva is riding an 11-match winning streak, having become the youngest player ever to capture a WTA 1000 title when she won the event at Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on March 1. She beat Swiatek in the quarterfinals at Dubai.
The last time a player as young as Andreeva made the finals at Indian Wells was when then-17-year-old Kim Clijsters fell in the 2001 final to Serena Williams.
Andreeva managed to turn around the Friday match against Swiatek despite struggling in the middle of the contest.
“After she literally killed me in the second set, I was just, ‘Well, OK, might just try to fight,'” Andreeva said. “There is not much I could do about it. She was playing amazing. And I just kind of decided to grind and fight for every point.
“It doesn’t matter how I put the ball in. But I have to put it in. So I just try to do everything and in the end, it was not too bad.”
Earlier, Andreeva cruised through the first-set tiebreaker.
“I just felt like, I don’t know why I felt so much confidence, and I felt like I’m gonna go and play the tiebreak like it’s the last tiebreak of my life,” Andreeva said. “So I just went for all my shots. My serve was great, and, you know, just felt super comfortable and super confident during the tiebreak. I kind of played on a roll.”
Swiatek was thwarted in her bid to become the first player to win the BNP Paribas Open three times. She won the title in 2022 and 2024.
Sabalenka, the 2023 Indian Wells runner-up, is through to the final again after an impressive run. After beating McCartney Kessler 7-6 (4), 6-3 in her first match, Sabalenka has lost a total of three games, three games, five games and now one game in her subsequent victories.
The Friday match against Keys was a rematch of the Australian Open final in January, which Keys won 6-3, 2-6, 7-5. Sabalenka had been the two-time defending champion in Melbourne.
The Indian Wells battle was no contest, and it ended in 51 minutes.
“That Australian Open match was really heartbreaking for me, and I really needed some time to recover after that,” Sabalenka said. “And if I would lose today again, it would get in my head and I didn’t want that to happen.
“I was really focused, so I was just really hungry to get this win against Madison.”
–Field Level Media
