Andreeva bests Sherif, returns to winning ways at Wimbledon
No. 7 seed Mirra Andreeva View Profile opened her Wimbledon campaign with a 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Mayar Sherif View Profile in 1 hour and 19 minutes to notch her first win at SW19 since her 2023 debut.
Wimbledon: Scores | Order of play | Draws
Two years ago, Andreeva's run from qualifying to the last 16 launched her into the Top 100 -- but she followed that in 2024 with an opening loss to Brenda Fruhvirtova which remains her only Grand Slam first-round exit to date. This year, the 18-year-old entered the tournament having lost three of her past four matches, including a quarterfinal heartbreaker to Lois Boisson View Profile at Roland Garros, and she admitted to feeling "super, super nervous" ahead of facing Sherif.
In her on-court interview, Andreeva contrasted that with her carefree attitude in 2023.
"I was feeling great [that year]," she said. "I didn't feel nervous at all, I was coming to the match and I was like, 'OK, I'm just gonna show what I can do,' and I was playing my best level of tennis. Now it's a little bit different. Now I expect myself to win the matches."
Andreeva dropped serve twice in a scrappy first set, though she broke No. 86-ranked Sherif -- who owns just one tour-level win on grass in her career -- four times in response. But in the second, the teenager began to find more of a rhythm, improving her first-serve percentage from 42% to 77% and impressing with both her net play and passing shots.
Andreeva's recent run of losses is a contrast to her superb spring, in which back-to-back WTA 1000 titles in Dubai and Indian Wells enabled her to break into the Top 10. She said that after Paris in particular, she had needed some time to reset with coach Conchita Martínez.
"We had a lot of talks and conversations," Andreeva said. "But you know, you play tournaments every week. It's not possible that you win every tournament. So you just learn how to deal with losses. Sometimes it's easier, sometimes it's harder. For example, at the French Open it was super hard to recover. It took me a couple of days, but I took a lot of positives from those weeks.
"In Berlin it was also tough, but a little bit easier already. It didn't take me as much time as in Paris. So I guess I'm also making progress in that. I think that it also depends on how you lose and which tournament. In the end we just took a lot of positives from all the weeks that I've played before."
Andreeva will next face Lucia Bronzetti View Profile , the 2023 Bad Homburg finalist, who advanced 6-4, 7-5 over Jil Teichmann View Profile .
