15-year-old Mirra Andreeva making an impact at the Madrid Open

Mirra Andreeva (Google Images)

One of the biggest stores in Madrid this week has been the play of 15-year-old wildcard Mirra Andreeva of Krasnoyarsk, Russia. This remarkable teenage phenom is in the third round after stunning 2021 U.S. Open finalist Leylah Annie Fernandez of Canada 6-3, 6-4 in the first round on Wednesday and then upsetting the 13th seed Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, 7-6, 6-3 in the second round on Thursday.

As a result, Andreeva, who is 194th in the world, was the third youngest player to win a WTA 1000 match. The two players who were younger were Americans Coco Gauff and Cici Bellis. Gauff of Atlanta, Georgia was only 15 years and eight days old when she beat fellow American City McNally in the first round of Miami, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, on March 21, 2019. Bellis of San Francisco, California, was only 15 years old and 351 days when she beat Indy de Vroome of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-2 in the first round of Miami on March 24, 2015. Andreeva’s exact age when she beat Fernandez was 15 years old and 362 days. She in fact is turning 16 on Saturday.

Andreeva made more history after her win on Thursday. She became only the seventh player under the age of 16 since 2000 to beat a player ranked inside the top 20. She follows Gauff, Bellis, Tatiana Golovin of France, Nicole Vaidisova of the Czech Republic, Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria, and Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal.

Bellis and Andreeva are the only players under 16 to beat a top 50 player at a WTA 1000 Series event in the 21st century and Andreeva has done it twice. Bellis beat Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, who was ranked 29th in Miami, on March 27, 2015, three days after beating de Vroome.

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