Conchita Martinez-coached 18-year old Mirra Andreeva is tipped as future Grand Slam champion and she made a hilarious faux-pas at a Wimbledon pre-quarters game. She had just won the match and had made it to her first Wimbledon quarter-finals but she hadn’t realised it. She was getting ready to return serve when she spotted the opponent Navarro at the nets, waiting to shake hands.
“I completely forgot the score!” Andreeva said later. She explained how that situation happened. “”I kept telling myself that I am facing a break point and that I’m down in the score to help me stay focused. But in the end I completely forgot the score. I am glad that I did it because I would have been three times more nervous on a match point.”
Andreeva had three match points on the Navarro serve and converted the first to register a 6-2 6-3 win for the Russian. The American Navarro was at the nets and the crowd too had stood up to applaud, but Andreeva was still at the back of the court. Incidentally, she is yet to drop a set in this tournament.
Andreeva is on the rise in world tennis after winning two WTA 1000 titles and climbing to a career-high ranking of sixth in the world this year and was dominant against Navarro, holding strong in the rallies and dictating from the baseline.
Her coach, the former Wimbledon champion, had earlier spoken about her. “Martinez Mirra is a very special player and very complete in everything she does – but also improvable. I think she has a lot to learn. If I won Wimbledon [in 1994] – I was more of a clay-court player – then I think she has a good shot of winning,” Conchita told BBC.
“If Mirra does things with an open mind, and doesn’t get angry when she misses, she has a game which she can win. You can get angry – it’s not like you should always be perfect on the court,” she said.
“But you have to be humble and accept when things are not perfect. If she is ready for that then she has a shot of doing really well.” Andreeva works with a sports psychologist and has spoken about her approach. “Every match I have played there is always a moment where I let my emotions out. I feel it helps me. But I think I can find a different way of letting them out. I don’t know, maybe scream – but not throw a racquet.”
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
