MELBOURNE, Australia — When Mirra Andreeva won the Adelaide title last weekend, it didn’t take her long to discover that three of the past four winners of that title have gone on to win the Australian Open the same year. That includes Madison Keys, who was a surprise champion in Melbourne 12 months ago.
“Sometimes I could get really crazy,” she said. “Like, eating the same thing, waking up at the same time, doing everything at the same time. But then in Adelaide, on purpose, I broke the routine just to see what would happen. And nothing bad happened. So after that, I’m just not going to spend my time doing that kind of stuff.”
Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff remain favorites for the title here this year but Andreeva is rising fast. Three years ago, she lost in the final of the girls’ event at the Australian Open; now, after a year in which she won two WTA 1000 titles and reached the quarterfinals at the French Open and Wimbledon, she’s the No. 8 seed and heading, it seems, for a last-eight clash against Gauff.
Expectations bring pressure, but Andreeva seems now able to handle it. She’s less likely to explode on court or lose her concentration as she has in the past, as she showed in recovering from a set down to beat Donna Vekic in the first round.
Martinez has been a key figure in her rise to the top 10. The former Wimbledon champion seems as relaxed off the court as Andreeva — the pair was even spotted chasing each other around the corridors at Melbourne Park moments before the match with Sakkari. Calm but organized and a top tactician, Martinez helped Garbine Muguruza win Wimbledon in 2017 and spent two years coaching Karolina Pliskova.
Andreeva is known for her on-court interviews, which are almost worth the ticket price alone. “I can say that I’ve been like this my whole life,” she said. “I like to joke around a lot and I like to annoy people as well. It’s just me. It’s just who I am, my personality just kind of gets there.”
Andreeva plays Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania in the third round on Friday. While a Grand Slam title is Andreeva’s stated goal, she also wants to stay away from serious injury.
“I would say, first, my goal would be to stay healthy, to play free, with no pain,” she said. “And also to enjoy every match that I play, and to learn new stuff. My goal would be to improve every day as a tennis player and as a human as well. And then I think if I do everything well, if I do everything the right way, good things are probably going to come. I hope so.”
Dealing with pressure was hard at first, she said, but now she’s learning how to cope with all the expectations on her shoulders. “I feel like before, it was kind of harder for me, because it was all new to me, and I didn’t really know that that is normal or what to do with that,” she admitted. “But now, with time, also talking a lot with Conchita [Martinez, her coach], who is a very experienced coach and a very experienced player as well, with my psychologist, with my team … I just know that it’s normal. I’m going to get pressure from defending points or defending titles or whatever else will get into my mind [but] I just have to learn how to accept it and play with it. And that’s it.”