MIRRA ANDREEVA WAS near tears after she advanced to her first major semifinal. She had just defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the biggest win of her young career and had taken another monumental leap forward in her swift ascent to the top of the tennis world. It was a dream coming true in front of the world’s eyes.
But that was over 13 months ago.
And since then, everything has changed for the 18-year-old.
On Monday, Andreeva, the No. 7 seed, defeated No. 10 Emma Navarro to advance to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. She is now one match away from reaching the second Slam semifinal of her burgeoning career.
But during this latest run, there have been no tears or even many signs of emotion. Andreeva, who just finished her high school studies, has the presence and mentality of a seasoned tour veteran — and looked poised and collected during her staggering 6-2, 6-3 victory over Navarro. It was her first appearance on Centre Court, and while she later said she was “really nervous” when she noticed Roger Federer was sitting in the royal box, she didn’t show it, clinching the first set in just over a half-hour and the match in 75 minutes.
In fact, the only mistake she made on the day might have been after match point when she appeared unaware the match was over, leaving a confused Navarro waiting for her at the net.
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Mirra Andreeva unaware match is over after beating Emma Navarro
Mirra Andreeva heads back to the baseline after defeating Emma Navarro 6-2, 6-3 to reach her first Wimbledon quarterfinal.
“I kept telling myself I’m facing break point and [I] tried to tell myself I’m not the one who is up, I’m the one who is down. I was so focused that in the end I completely forgot the score,” Andreeva said on court a few moments later. “I’m happy I did it because otherwise I would be three times more nervous on the match point.”
Andreeva may be the youngest player in the WTA’s top 80, but after reaching the quarterfinals at last month’s French Open and replicating the feat at Wimbledon, she proved she is no longer a prodigious phenom poised for greatness, but a star of the moment who belongs deep in the second week of majors.
Her season has been nothing short of extraordinary, and her achievements would be envy-inducing to even the game’s most accomplished. Since reaching the fourth round at the Australian Open in January, Andreeva became the youngest woman in history to win a 1000-level title after securing the trophy in Dubai — and then became the youngest woman to do it twice just weeks later when she won yet again at Indian Wells. The Russian reached a career-high ranking of No. 6 last month, and has emerged as a favorite to win at the All England Club. The only teenager to have made it to the second week, Andreeva became the youngest woman to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals since Nicole Vaidisova in 2007, and the youngest to do so without dropping a set since Maria Sharapova, the eventual champion, in 2004. On Wednesday, Andreeva will have the opportunity to take the next, seemingly inevitable step in her red-hot career as she takes on Belinda Bencic.
While the expectations have been high since Andreeva burst onto the scene two years ago, even those closest to her are surprised by just how fast her rise has been.
“Everyone saw [a] couple of years ago that Mirra was already very good,” Daria Kasatkina, who is a frequent practice partner and something of a mentor figure for Andreeva, said after losing to her at the French Open. “I mean, the potential was always there, so [it] was just a matter of time when she was going to skyrocket. It was pretty fast.”
And it’s clear, to her peers anyway, that the future is now.
“I don’t think she’s ‘promising’ anymore,” said Clara Tauson, whom Andreeva defeated in the Dubai final. “I think she’s [already] at the top of our game.”
WHILE THE SEMIFINALS at Wimbledon would be a first — as would a major final — Andreeva has become accustomed to the big stage and the intense glare of the spotlight.
As a 15-year-old, just months after losing in the Australian Open junior final, Andreeva formally introduced herself to the tennis world with a surprise run to the fourth round as a wild card at the 2023 Madrid Open, a 1000-level event. By the end of the season, she had made the main draw in all of the remaining majors, won at least a match at each, and even reached the fourth round at Wimbledon. There were immediate comparisons to players such as Coco Gauff, now 21 and a two-time major champion, due to Andreeva’s fearless play, impressive self-belief and charming postmatch interviews.
Behind the scenes, Andreeva continued to work on her game and make improvements. In April of last year, she started working with Conchita Martinez, the 1994 Wimbledon champion who had since worked with former world No. 1 players Garbine Muguruza and Karolina Pliskova. It began as a trial but quickly turned official. The 2024 French Open was just their fourth tournament together, but the two have become known for their easy rapport with one another and constant jokes. Andreeva frequently mentions and lovingly makes fun of Martinez in interviews, including during her on-court interview on Monday. Martinez could be seen laughing throughout the exchange, as well as during Andreeva’s gaffe at the end of the match. The dynamic seems to work, and work well.
“I am very impressed by her maturity level. She’s still 17, so she has those moments still when she is like a child,” Martinez told the French Open’s website last year. “She plays games, jokes around and in the moments she needs to be serious, she can switch to that. That’s very important, I feel like she respects me and my work.”
After her fourth-round win, Andreeva said she was “super grateful” that fate had brought her and Martinez together.
“I feel like now having her in my box, especially during this tournament, is also super special because she can give me and share with me so much experience,” Andreeva said. “She’s a great supporter.”
Just months after they joined forces, Andreeva won the first WTA title of her career at the Isai Open in July. Weeks later, she won Olympic silver alongside frequent doubles partner Diana Shnaider. By the end of 2024, she was ranked No. 16 with a goal of cracking the top 10. She achieved that by February.
“Once I did that, everyone started to ask me, ‘What is your next goal?'” Andreeva told ESPN in March. “And I had no idea. The only thing I had to say, to try to answer the question, was top five. So that’s what I’m going to try and do now I guess.”
After her win on Monday, she’s now projected to be No. 5 in next week’s rankings, with a chance to reach as high as No. 3 by tournament’s end.
WHEN ANDREEVA, UNSEEDED and ranked No. 38 in the world, defeated Sabalenka in the 2024 French Open quarterfinals, many attributed the upset in part to a stomach bug that had plagued Sabalenka for several days leading into the match. She needed medical attention during their clash and didn’t appear to be at her best.
As a result, it was easy for some to discount the victory.
But during the Indian Wells final in March, Andreeva proved she was capable of beating Sabalenka, who has held the world No. 1 ranking since October, in full health. Andreeva defeated her with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 win for the trophy. While Sabalenka said she had played poorly and cited that as the reason for the loss, Andreeva’s talent and resolve was on full display in the comeback victory.
The win further raised her profile and drew the attention of Sharapova, her childhood idol, and LeBron James, who Andreeva had said helped with her mentality after listening to an interview he had done.
“Happy to have helped but honestly YOU did THAT!!,” James commented on Instagram. “All your hard work, drive and dedication towards your craft! KEEP GOING!”
Sabalenka, now 27, was quick to give credit — in both her postmatch concession speech on the court and later in her news conference — to Andreeva for the team around her.
“I can see she has her family who is helping her with, I’m sure, a lot of decisions,” Sabalenka said. “She has Conchita, [who] is [a] really experienced person and very nice person. She doesn’t have the abusive things. Yeah, definitely she got the right team much earlier [than I did], and that’s why she’s so successful right now.”
That team now includes a sports psychologist, whom she started working with at the start of the season and speaks to by phone regularly.
While a team can only do so much — it is just the player on the court in the match, after all — Andreeva told ESPN she goes to those around her when the pressure gets to be too much, or if she has just had a bad practice, Martinez, and the rest of the team, listen to her concerns and help alleviate them. “When it’s hard, I just talk to my team, and it gets easier,” Andreeva said.
She has spoken in recent months about her newfound positive attitude on the court and her desire to “always fight for every point no matter what happens.” Andreeva believes her mental improvements have been as significant as her physical growth and progression. And, in addition to the technical and tactical insight, Andreeva said Martinez always finds a way to motivate her.
“I think that she knows what to tell me and how either to calm me down or how to pump me up, so it depends how I feel,” Andreeva said during the French Open. “I think that she knows what to do to make me feel better.”
Andreeva also frequently has her older sister Erika, currently ranked No. 106, on site at tournaments and they frequently post on social media together. (Erika lost in the first round of qualifying at Wimbledon.)
There have been a handful of young women, barely out of the junior level, on the WTA Tour over the past decade who have achieved high levels of success seemingly out of nowhere. Emma Raducanu was 18 when she earned the 2021 US Open trophy as a qualifier. Unseeded Jelena Ostapenko became the 2017 French Open champion just days after turning 20. The list goes on. But consistency has remained elusive for many.
While it has dramatically improved in recent seasons, the struggles for young players to replicate their early results and remain on top has been a well-documented challenge. Few, however, have been more consistent on a weekly basis this season than Andreeva, who told reporters she was trying not to think about all of the top players who had been eliminated early from the tournament.
“I didn’t have a thought that, I don’t know, maybe it’s like a curse or something, that it can go after me,” she said on Saturday. “So I was just focusing on myself, focusing on what I have to do on the court. That’s what I’m going to focus on until the end of the tournament. I’m just going to try and be the best version of myself every match I play.”
After Monday’s victory, no one has won more matches on tour this year aside from Sabalenka.
Currently ranked No. 13 in doubles, she has been almost equally dominant alongside Shnaider. The two have won two titles together this year, including at the 1000-level Miami Open, and reached the semifinals at the Australian Open, and reached the semifinals at the French Open. The pair lost in the round of 16 at Wimbledon on Sunday.
“It’s been one of my dreams to see you in real life.” 🫶
Mirra Andreeva kept her nerve playing on Centre Court in front of Roger Federer #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/b3M1fN83T0
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 7, 2025
On the singles court at the All England Club, Andreeva has been nearly flawless. During her first four matches, she hasn’t dropped a set. Against Hailey Baptiste, a versatile American, in the third round, Andreeva stuck to her game plan, mixing aggression with patience, and pulled off the 6-1, 6-3 victory in just 78 minutes. “I felt like I was playing great,” she said after the match.
Ahead of their meeting on Monday, Navarro praised Andreeva’s power and serve, while adding, she “can also get scrappy.” Her words could not have been more accurate. During the match, Andreeva did just about everything right, utilizing all of her weapons — including a dominant first serve — and taking control from the start. Andreeva broke Navarro in the third game, and again in the fifth, to claim the opening set and won six of seven break points on the day.
“She’s a really tough player,” Navarro said after the match. “I think, you know, all around she just has a really complete game. I think she has the power on the serve. She’s good off the ground from the baseline. She’s really tough when points extend and things get scrappy. You know, she’ll underspin or throw the ball up in the air. Even when you feel like you’re in a good position to win the point, you always have to hit an extra ball or two.”
It marked Andreeva’s 10th career victory over a top-10 player, making her the youngest to reach the mark since Sharapova in 2005.
Andreeva is now into her third major quarterfinal, and her first at Wimbledon. And while she had a surprising loss in the French Open quarterfinals last month to qualifier Lois Boisson and showed rare signs of nerves, Andreeva said she learned from the experience.
“You play tournaments every week; it’s not possible that you win every tournament,” Andreeva said last week. “So you just learn how to deal with losses. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. For example, at the French Open it was super hard to recover. It took me a couple of days, but I took a lot of positives from those weeks.”
But doing what she couldn’t do in Paris won’t be easy against the resurgent Bencic. Because Bencic just returned at the end of 2024 from maternity leave, the two have never played before. But the former world No. 4 and Olympic gold medalist has been stellar all season long and has held off a slew of challenging opponents during the fortnight, including No. 18 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the fourth round. She is also looking to reach her second major semifinal.
It will be an incredible opportunity for both players.
But on Monday, not long after her win, Andreeva didn’t seem too focused on that just yet. Instead, she seemed more like a typical teenager, excited to talk about what celebrities she hoped to see in the crowd next — Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Lily Collins currently top the list — and discovering Wimbledon actually had a “Last 8 Club” with lifetime benefits.
And, she couldn’t help but share her pride in her performance, both on Monday and throughout the tournament — something that she will leave London with, no matter what happens on Wednesday.
“Last year on grass I really struggled with finding the right rhythm and finding the right tactics, how to play on grass and what to do,” Andreeva said. “I’m just happy that this year I found the rhythm, I’ve managed to come back and get my confidence back again by winning more and more matches.
“I feel like last year my relationship with grass, I didn’t really miss it. This year of course we’re back to [a] great relationship and good vibes. I’m just happy that I’ve managed to find the right way to play on grass.”
