By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Thursday, February 20, 2025
Seventeen-year-old Mirra Andreeva won five games in a row shocking No. 2 Iga Swiatek 6-3, 6-3 to reach her maiden WTA 1000 semifinal in Dubai.
Photo credit: Christopher Pike/Getty
Fierce front-runner Iga Swiatek is skilled stretching leads.
Facing a 1-3 second-set deficit today, an inspired Mirra Andreeva ran Swiatek right out of Dubai.
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A fired-up Andreeva burst through five straight games scoring a stunning 6-3, 6-3 sweep of Swiatek to charge into her maiden WTA 1000 semifinal at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
It’s a historic victory for the 17-year-old Andreeva, who is the youngest Dubai semifinalist since the tournament’s inception in 2001.
Transitioning from defense to offense smoothly, Andreeva showed her change of direction skills. The teenager sometimes zapped drives down the line leaving Swiatek flat-footed in the center of the court.
"Honestly, I was really nervous before the match," Andreeva said in her on-court interview. "We played in Cincinnati last year and it was pretty intense.
"So I just told myself that I played great and I just need to continue to play aggressive and active and go for my shots....
"I had a lot of people supporting [me]. So thank you guys, for supporting, it means a lot."
Andreeva, who toppled No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka en route to the Roland Garros semifinals last June, scored her second win over a world No. 2.
It comes one day after WTA ace leader Clara Tauson tore through seven of the last nine games battering world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 6-2 to charge into her maiden WTA 1000 quarterfinal in Dubai.
All of the Top 5 seeds have now been eliminated from Dubai leaving No. 6-seeded Elena Rybakina as the highest seed still standing. Former Wimbledon winner Rybakina faces 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin with the winner taking on Andreeva for a place in Saturday’s final.
Former world No. 1 Swiatek, whose three-year reign as Doha champion ended with a 6-3, 6-1 loss to unseeded Jelena Ostapenko in the semifinals last week, said the physicality of playing back-to-back WTA 1000 tournaments took a tool.
"For sure it's a calendar thing. We're not going to be able to be consistent for many years playing week-by-week," Swiatek told the media in Dubai afterward. "Also it's not like some time ago that outside of Top-20 players, they were just getting destroyed more.
"Now anybody can win these tournaments. It is like that since a couple of years.
"But I feel like the calendar is not helping. Again, we need to switch continents, we need to switch surfaces, we need to switch the balls - it's not easy, I'm not surprised."
It’s Andreeva’s first Top 10 win since she defeated then world No. 5 Jasmine Paolini to reach the Cincinnati quarterfinals last August.
Last August, Swiatek showed multi-tasking skills fending off Andreeva 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to battle into her second straight Cincinnati Open semifinal.
Today, Andreeva flipped the script on the strength of a superior serve—and her comfort level beating the world No. 2 in backhand exchanges.
Andreeva cracked 10 aces to none for Swiatek and protected her second serve with more care. Andreeva on 20 of 33 second-serve points, while Swiatek as 6 for 14 on second serve points won.
In Cincinnati, Andreeva doubled Swiatek’s ace output—12 to 6—and today she used the serve to set up probing first strikes.
The 14th-ranked Andreeva broke at love for a 2-1 lead and consolidated for 3-1.
Growing stronger as the set progressed, Andreeva tore through eight of the last nine points to take a one-set lead.
Trying to reset, Swiatek jumped out to a 3-1 second-set lead.
At that point, Andreeva had a brief chat with coach and former Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez, who advised her charge to keep calm and carry on. That chat seemed to calm the teenager, who tore through three games on the fly.
Andreeva lit it up surging through 12 of the next 14 points wrapping a pair of love holds around a break to take a 4-3 lead. Andreeva broke again for 5-3 then served out a commanding one hour, 36-minute triumph on her first match point.
"I think [Coach Conchita Martinez] didn't tell me anything new. She told me everything I knew already," Andreeva said. "She just told me to keep going because I played good and she just told me to go for my shots, that I don't have to change anything."
The victory vaults Andreeva to a new career-high ranking of No. 12 ahead of her maiden WTA 1000 semifinal.
Mirra Andreeva and Doha champion Amanda Anisimova were two of the five women Tennis Now picked to crack the Top 10 for the first time in 2025 in a preview video last December and both are within striking distance of that lofty goal.