By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Sixteen-year-old Mirra Andreeva slammed her tennis idol, No. 6-seed Ons Jabeur, 6-0, 6-2, in a stunning Australian Open second-round upset.
Photo credit: Daniel Pockett/Getty
Ons Jabeur matches are must-see TV in Mirra Andreeva’s house.
Facing her tennis idol for the first time today, Andreeva pushed all the right buttons pulling the plug on Jabeur with a shocking 6-0, 6-2 Australian Open triumph.
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The 16-year-old Andreeva converted five of seven break points stopping the sixth seed in the biggest upset of the tournament to become the first woman to reach the AO third round.
Playing near flawless tennis, the 46th-ranked Andreeva dispensed a blissful beatdown to the Minister of Happiness that comes just a year after her run to the Australian Open girls’ final.
It was Andreeva’s first career Top 10 victory and marked the second straight year Jabeur has fallen at the second-round hurdle.
Last January, world No. 86 Marketa Vondrousova stunned the second-ranked Jabeur 6-1, 5-7, 6-1 in a masterful Australian Open second-round upset that ended after 1 a.m. Melbourne time.
It was the 2019 Roland Garros finalist's biggest Grand Slam victory, in terms of ranking, in her career, her first Top 10 victory in a major and a prelude to Vondrousova’s wondrous run to the Wimbledon championship where she again defeated Jabeur to capture her maiden major title.
Feeling the jitters before her second appearance on Rod Laver Arena, Andreeva’s audacious shotmaking and lofty level left her surprised.
“I was really nervous before the match because I am really inspired by Ons by the way she plays,” Andreeva told Laura Robson in her on-court interview. “Before I started to play on the WTA tour I always watched her matches.
“I was always so inspired by the way she plays. Now I had a chance to play against her. Honestly in the first set I showed amazing tennis. I honestly didn’t expect that from myself.
“I just wanted to go and play on this big court for the second time and just to enjoy tennis and just to enjoy the time. And I did.”
Prescience is a premium resource of Jabeur’s all-court game.
Prior to facing Andreeva, Jabeur shared a painful premonition in her presser.
“I know she's 16 years old, but she's very tough,” Jabeur said before facing Andreeva. “I might be her idol, but she wants to go there and kick my ass, for sure.”
That’s pretty much precisely what happened.
Though Andreeva is far less experienced, she’s played more tennis this month. Andreeva carried a 4-1 record on the season onto court while Jabeur was playing just her second match of the year.
Bursting out of the blocks quickly, Andreeva was the aggressor from the start as Jabeur looked like a woman operating out of a haze. Andreeva repeatedly beat Jabeur in the backhand-to-backhand exchanges and teed off on crackling returns down the line.
A free-flowing Andreeva twirled a forehand drive volley for set points.
Andreeva spun her two-handed backhand down the line, coaxing another errant forehand from the Wimbledon finalist to seize an overwhelming opening set in just 20 minutes.
The 2022 US Open finalist looked a little lost in the opening set and could not decipher the direction of Andreeva’s drives. Jabeur committed 10 unforced errors—seven more than her teenage opponent—in the opening set.
Trying to reset, Jabeur ran around her backhand and clubbed a high inside-out forehand to finally get on the scoreboard. Jabeur raised an index finger and twirled it in the air signaling “I finally got one.”
That was a temporary reprieve for a besieged Jabeur.
The skill to improvise on the move is an Andreeva asset. She showed it flicking a running pass down the line that froze her opponent for a break point.
Trying to squeeze her favored forehand down the line, Jabeur scattered that shot wide. Andreeva scored her fourth break to go up 2-1 after 33 minutes.
Though Jabeur had a break point in the ensuing game, her recent lack of match play was evident. The three-time major finalist tried to play a drop shot return off a second serve. It was easy fodder for Andreeva who belted a winner down the line erasing break point.
Continuing to impose her superior two-hander, Andreeva battered out successive backhand errors backing up the break for 3-1.
Even when Jabeur had the upper hand in baseline exchanges, she couldn’t quite find the finishing shot. Facing break point in the fifth game, Jabeur jerked the 16-year-old side-to-side to set up the short ball only to shovel a backhand drop shot attempt. That miscue gave Andreeva the double break and a 4-1 lead.
Given Andreeva’s quickness around the court and her shrewd anticipation, Jabeur would have been better off shelving the dropper and try to play higher and heavier drives, but on this day confusion shrouded her shot-making like a shroud.
The Tunisian trailblazer slid an ace down the T holding for 2-5. It took Jabeur 51 minutes to take two games.
Lunging for a blurring Mirra Andreeva pass, Jabeur’s Wilson frame went flying from her grasp.
The 16-year-old Andreeva mixed disarming drives down the line with befuddling finesse to shock the sixth-seeded Jabeur with elegant ease.
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Andreeva, who was ranked No. 312 last April, qualified for both Roland Garros and Wimbledon last summer where she made it all the way to the round of 16 and was a few points away from upsetting Madison Keys before bowing.
Today, Andreeva calmly cruised through the learning curve to her greatest win, by ranking, and believes the best is yet to come.
“I just feel I am a bit more mature than I was before,” Andreeva said. “Just last year I was 15 and this year I think I changed a lot and I think you can see that on the court.”
In the locker room after this stirring upset, Jabeur reinforced her role as Andreeva's idol wishing the teenager the best moving forward in Melbourne.
"She's so nice," Andreeva said of Jabeur. "Now, after the match, she came to me, she wished me luck. I just know that she is who she is and she never change. That's what I like about her."