From one teen phenom to another, Andreeva has advice for Jones in Brisbane

In her season debut, Mirra Andreeva showed she was ready to reset. The 18-year-old rallied from a set down to defeat local qualifier Olivia Gadecki 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 and advance to the second round of the Brisbane International.

Andreeva broke into the Top 10 last year, highlighted by back-to-back WTA 1000 titles in Dubai and Indian Wells, but faded as the season wore on. She went 4-5 after Wimbledon and ended 2025 with three straight losses, making Wednesday’s comeback effort an encouraging start to the new year.

After defeating Gadecki, Andreeva acknowledged that she had struggled -- but also learned from her experiences on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz.

"I did feel pressure from a lot of people, especially after I won the two tournaments," she said. "I felt like people would expect me to win Miami, and then they would expect me to win Madrid and Rome. And I was, you know, that's basically almost not possible.

"I did feel the pressure that people were expecting me to win basically every tournament that I would play, and that was not easy. But last year I learned a lot how to deal with the pressure, how to not pay attention to what people say, and how to talk about this. Because I was talking a lot about how I felt with my team and now I feel like I know more about this. I have learned a lot from the last year, and if that happens this year, I certainly know what to do with this."

In that vein, the World No. 9 also had words of encouragement for another teenager drawing attention in Brisbane. Australia’s 17-year-old Emerson Jones, the former junior world No. 1, followed up her first-round upset of Tatjana Maria with a Vogue Australia feature this week.

Against No. 10 seed Liudmila Samsonova, Jones made a blistering start, ripping a series of winners to take a 3-0 lead. But she couldn’t maintain that level. Once Samsonova, a former Wimbledon quarterfinalist, settled into the match and imposed her power, she took control and won 12 of the final 14 games to close out a 6-4, 6-1 victory.

Andreeva is one of many who has been impressed by Jones, just one year her junior, this week.

"I think she's very talented," she said. "Because she's very thin, she's very small, but she hits pretty hard."

But as a teen phenom who has had to learn to shake off pressure, Andreeva advises Jones to ignore the hype and do likewise.

"I just think that if I had a chance to tell her something, maybe I would have said not to focus on whatever people say," she told press. "Because there's going to be a lot of people that would say, 'Oh, you're going to be the next Sharapova or the next Ash Barty.'

"You just have to focus that you are who you are, and you have your own career and you have your own path. I'm Mirra Andreeva. She's Emerson Jones. She's not going to be the next Ash Barty, because Ash Barty stopped her career. She's not playing anymore. She's going to have her own career, and I think she should focus on making her own path in tennis."

Andreeva’s victory also snapped an unwelcome trend. Home players had recently proved a consistent hurdle for her: Between the 2024 US Open and the end of 2025, she lost six of eight matches against opponents competing on home soil. Last year, she fell to Amanda Anisimova in Miami, Lois Boisson at Roland Garros, Taylor Townsend at the US Open and Zhu Lin in Ningbo. For a set against the No. 204-ranked Gadecki, it looked like more of the same. From 3-1 down, the Australian won five of the next six games, repeatedly punishing Andreeva’s second serve.

The match turned at 1-1 in the second set, when Andreeva faced two break points that would have left her down a set and a break. She saved both with strong serving, then broke Gadecki in the next game with a trademark backhand down the line. From there she took command, winning 13 straight points to close out the second set and start the third, and never looked back.

Like Andreeva, No. 2 seed Anisimova faces the challenge in 2026 of backing up a breakthrough year. And like Andreeva, she got off to a solid start against local opposition, needing just 63 minutes to dismiss wild card Kimberly Birrell 6-1, 6-3.

Unlike Andreeva, Anisimova finished 2025 hot, backing up her pair of Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open with her second WTA 1000 title in Beijing. The key question for the American would be whether she could keep her momentum going -- and that was certainly the case against Birrell.

A dominant performance saw World No. 3 Anisimova slam 18 winners to her opponent's four. She ran off 11 consecutive points to close out the first set and start the second; a brief blip up 3-2 in the second set, when she double faulted to drop serve for the only time, was quickly shaken off. Anisimova's backhand on the run was arguably her most improved shot of 2025, and it was appropriate that she sealed match point with a scorching winner off that wing.

Andreeva and Anisimova are both just one match away from meeting in the quarterfinals this week, though both will have to navigate tough third-round opponents first. Anisimova will face No. 16 seed Marta Kostyuk, who defeated lucky loser Yulia Putintseva 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-0; she has defeated the Ukrainian just once in three meetings, and that was a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 battle in last year's Doha quarterfinals.

For the third year in a row, Andreeva will face Linda Noskova in Brisbane after the Czech No. 9 seed battled past Magdalena Frech 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4 in 2 hours and 31 minutes. In her on-court interview, Noskova referred to struggling with a leg injury during the match.

"Brisbane is not Brisbane if I don't play Linda, starting from the first year I came here," Andreeva said. They have split their two previous meetings at the tournament, with Noskova winning 7-5, 6-3 in the 2024 quarterfinals and Andreeva gaining a 6-3, 6-0 revenge in the 2025 third round. Andreeva leads their overall head-to-head 3-2.