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By Chris Oddo | Tuesday March 19, 2019


Bianca Andreescu hasn’t just inspired Canadian tennis fans, or tennis fans in general, or her peers on the WTA Tour with her self-professed Cinderella run to the BNP Paribas Open title last week, she has also inspired anybody who wishes to become better at what they do.

In other words: everyone! That barista with the big, oily beard that you saw at Starbucks this A.M.? Yes. The Prime Minister of Canada? Him too. A mother of three that is learning how to play the mandolin in her spare time? Of course.

That’s one of myriad takeaways from one of the more remarkable performances that the tennis world has witnessed in quite some time. The 18-year-old has so much to offer and she’s got time for you.


Andreescu, a fawn-eyed and genuinely caring human being, started on a journey of creative visualization, enhanced by yoga and meditation when she was 13, and over the weekend at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden we saw her reap the benefits of all that focus, discipline and passion as she stormed to the title and made history as the first wild card to ever claim the trophy at the BNP Paribas Open.

The Canadian put together a tremendous run for the ages, which started with a tough-as-nails three-set triumph over Irina-Camelia Begu on Stadium 2. I was in the cheap seats for that contest, preparing for an interview that I would later conduct in the player’s lounge with the rising phenom.

The victory was a testament to an element of Andreescu’s game that I was only beginning to discover—her never-say-die grittiness. It was on display throughout the match, which saw Begu playing lights out, "big babe tennis" as Andreescu struggled to hit targets and fend off the Romanian’s big blasts.

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It was a tricky encounter for Andreescu, who was coming off a difficult loss in Acapulco to Sonya Kenin and was playing her first ever match at Indian Wells, a place where players often need quite a bit of time to become accustomed to the slow surface and desert conditions. Down 3-1 in the third was when Andreescu really rose to the challenge as she continued to push and probe and eventually played the pivotal part in causing a meltdown from Begu.

From there she coasted to victory, slamming the accelerator and winning the final five games to avoid a loss that would have been devastating.

This is just one example of the multiple ways that Andreescu can win a tennis match. Her resilience and poise under pressure are champion’s qualities, just like her refreshing variety, her explosive movement and the jaw-dropping power that she cleverly juxtaposes against the backdrop of her tantalizing touch.

Complete package is a term that readily comes to mind.

And it is so accurate.

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Andreescu has developed a well-honed arsenal of tools, and she regularly dips into her bag and pulls them out with an uncanny sense of timing, blending shots together to create a frothy protein shake full of tennis goodness.

Furthermore, and this is important: Andreescu doesn’t employ variety as a necessity. We’ve seen the brilliance of Agnieszka Radwanska, who played a similar brand of tennis, albeit in her own completely unique way. But Radwanska’s tennis, as well as the tennis of other creative players like Hsieh Su-Wei, Kirsten Flipkens and Daria Kasatkina, doesn’t possess the punch of Andreescu’s. The Canadian can offer world-class power and simultaneously cycle between pure, unadulterated pace and pristine touch on a shot-by-shot basis.

If Radwanska et al. are playing their unique styles by necessity, due to a dearth of power, Andreescu is playing hers due to a desire to use every possible edge that she can create on the tennis court. She likes to say that her tremendous variety came about as a result of her being bored on the court as a kid, and if it’s true than she’s managed to take it to the next level and incorporate it into a very focused and tough-to-solve game plan.

Andreescu is the baseball pitcher with the 98 MPH fastball who mixes in the circle change to flummox sluggers and leave them waving the bat through the summer air as they go down on strikes.

That’s the essence of Andreescu the on-court phenom. Already, at age 18 (plus 276 days as of today) she’s one of the more cerebral players in women’s tennis. Already, she is one of the most consistently unpredictable players in the women’s game. She even had two of the best defenders in women’s tennis at a loss over the weekend at Indian Wells.

If the win over Begu, and the underlying grit that it took to achieve it, showcased the fortitude of Andreescu, the method in which she handled both Elina Svitolina and Angelique Kerber during back-to-back grueling affairs--by repeatedly taking them out of their comfort zones with changes of pace, trajectory and angle--showcases her elevated understanding of the tennis court as a three-dimensional canvas (Credit to New York Times writer Christopher Clarey, who mentioned the word canvas to Andreescu in an interview. She approved, saying she hadn’t heard that one before).

Statistically Andreescu has been a revelation, but more importantly, the way she plays the game has been the real revelation. Yes, she is the youngest player to claim the BNP Paribas Open title since Serena Williams won it as a 17-year-old in 1999. And yes she has rocketed onto our consciousness by rising from 152 to 24 in the WTA rankings in a span of ten weeks. The numbers surely do cause the eyes to pop, but what really pops more than anything that can be quantified analytically are the multifarious elements of her nuanced game that are unique to Andreescu and only Andreescu.

She’s tricky. She has incredible feel for the forehand drop shot. She can find the most insane angles on her crosscourt forehand. She can hit a beautiful forehand slice that fizzes over the net and bites the court when it hits. She can drop back and put mega air under the ball and on the next shot absolutely drill a forehand into the open court.

There’s a ridiculous amount to like about Andreescu’s game, and when we move on to her personality there’s even more. Good natured, open minded, easy to laugh and eager to share herself with the media even though she’s admitted that the last two and a half months have been extremely overwhelming in that sense, Andreescu is one of those players that somehow, at the tender age of 18, seems to get everything about being a model citizen and a breakout star.

That’s why the tennis world is embracing her with open arms—because she’s embracing the tennis world right back. There’s a nice symbiotic connection there, and while the future is impossible to predict for Bianca Andreescu, it sure as heck looks bright.

No doubt, like all teenagers do, she’ll run into some bumps in the road, a few potholes, and maybe a few traffic jams. She isn’t the only amazing young player on the WTA Tour, and she’s facing many players for the first time ever this season. Those players will likely develop a tolerance to Andreescu’s wizardry and maybe even open up a few cracks in her armor.

On the flipside, we can surely put the Canadian in the group of players who has the ability to win a major title—not just in the future, but now. If there ever was a perfect dry run for winning majors it would be Indian Wells—just ask Naomi Osaka. You could also ask four of the other five WTA players who have previously won the Indian Wells title at 18 or younger, like Andreescu. Those four each went to the U.S. Open final in the same year as their maiden titles in the California desert, and three of them (Monica Seles 1992, Serena Williams 1999 and Maria Sharapova 2006) won the title in New York.

Those were different times to be sure, but there has always been a tight correlation between success at Indian Wells and success at the U.S. Open.

In truth, there is only one way to find out if Andreescu is destined for immediate success at the majors—wait and see. For now, we should be content with knowing that there is a uniquely talented player rising up the WTA rankings. She’s a purist’s dream that possesses every tool in the bag and a warrior’s gleam in her eye.

And she woke up this morning and visualized success—no guarantee, but an admirable next step.

 

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