Teenager Mirra Andreeva defied age and inexperience to recover from 5-1 down in a deciding set to book her place in the fourth round of the Australian Open.
The 16-year-old had faced match point on her serve against France’s Diane Parry, but recovered to win 1-6, 6-1, 7-6.
Her performance earned praise from Andy Murray, among others, watching from his Surrey home in the early hours of Friday and labelling her a “winner”.
Andreeva burst onto the scene at last year’s French Open, before a run to the fourth round at Wimbledon, climbing from 405th in the world to 47th in a meteoric rise.
A year ago, she was playing and losing in the final of the Australian Open junior singles. On her main draw debut, she is now into the last 16.
Andreeva down 5-1 in third. Commentator “she really needs to work on mental side of her game.. she’s too hard on herself when she’s losing”
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) January 19, 2024
30 minutes later 7-6 Andreeva wins.
Maybe the reason she turned the match round is because of her mental strength. Maybe she turned the…
Andreeva had knocked out her idol, Ons Jabeur, in the previous round and has previously made no secret of her infatuation with Murray.
After his tweet, the Russian told the BBC: “I didn’t expect him to watch or say anything at all. When I saw him commenting and then posting it, I will print it out, I will put it in a frame and I will bring it everywhere with me!”
Despite having just 12 Grand Slam singles matches to her name, she said she already had ambitions to become one of the greats of the game.
“All the kids and everybody have dreams to become world No1 and to win a lot of Grand Slams,” she said. “For me, it’s just to have a career that everybody will remember, like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal.
"They’re not playing [here], but everybody is still talking about them every day, every night. I just want to be the player who everybody remembers.”
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, there were more straightforward victories for two of the favourites for the title.
Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka did not drop a game in a rapid demolition of Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko. And Coco Gauff was similarly clinical in winning the all-American encounter with Alycia Parks, converting all five of her break points to book her place in the fourth round.
In the men’s singles, pre-tournament favourite Novak Djokovic had struggled to come through his opening two rounds, pushed to four sets in both matches.
In Friday's third round, against Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry, who had knocked out Murray in the opening round in straight sets, the 10-time Australian Open champion finally found his best form, winning comfortably 6-3, 6-3, 7-6.
