Mira Andreeva became the first Russian tennis player in 14 years to reach the final of the WTA Finals.
The last one to do so was Maria Sharapova in 2012. In the decisive match Andreyeva will play with the Ukrainian Alina Svitolina. Regardless of the result, the Russian will become the second-ranked player in the world according to the WTA rankings updated on Monday.
19-year-old Mira Andreeva sets achievements one after another. She is the youngest finalist of the final tournament in the last 22 years: in 2004, Sharapova took this title at the age of 17. In the current tournament, Mirra won all four matches and did not give up a single set to her opponents - in turn, she defeated Svitolina, Arina Sablanka, Diana Schneider in the group and in the semi-finals - Jessica Pegula.
Her entire season has been successful, and second place in the WTA rankings will be the icing on the cake, regardless of the results of the finals.
St. Petersburg columnist Vedomosti and MyWaySport Sergey Podushkin believes that this is not the limit. In his opinion, together with coach Conchita Martins, Andreeva very skillfully built both pre-season training and preparation during the season, which resulted in two records: the clay season, in which she deservedly won Roland Garros, and the end of the season - after a reasonable break, she approached the final championship in very good shape, unlike her main competitors. If Andreeva continues in the same spirit and avoids injuries, the fight for the title of the first racket in the world is quite realistic, the expert believes.
At the beginning of the tournament Andreeva already met with Svitolina and won with a score of 6:4, 6:0, but the final will be a completely different match, notes Pavel Nitkin, editor of the tennis department of the sports portal. He mentions that in the final tournament, situations often arise where they play twice with the same opponent, and the first game goes in one direction, and the second - completely different, because the opponent draws conclusions and creates new problems.