Olympic champion Elena Vesnina assessed the form of Russian Mirra Andreeva at the Australian Open.

World number seven Mirra Andreeva beat Greek Maria Sakkari in the second round of the Australian Open with a score of 6:0, 6:4.

“Mirra walked through Sakkari very confidently and almost didn’t notice her at all. She had some of her best form last year when she won Indian Wells and Dubai.

Now we see Mirra, who has grown up and continues to study. But it’s too early to say that this is her best form. She needs to build her game, improve and set herself the goal of going as far as possible in the Grand Slam tournament, and maybe even winning it,” Vesnina was quoted as saying by Soviet Sport.

In the third round, the Russian will play with the 77th racket of the world, Elena Gabriela Ruze from Romania.

After a difficult start at the Australian Open, Mirra Andreeva faced another difficult opponent – Maria Sakkari. True, the titled Greek woman had to leave the court with the steering wheel, unlike our athlete, who achieved the best result among all tennis players in 19 years.

Difficult draw

Mirra was very unlucky with the draw at the Australian Open. Already in the first round she was opposed by the experienced Croatian tennis player Donna Vekic. Due to fatigue after winning the tournament in Adelaide, Andreeva experienced serious difficulties in this game. The Croatian even took the first game, but the more resilient Russian woman still put the finishing touches on her opponent – 4:6, 6:3, 6:0.

“Sometimes it takes time to get into the rhythm of a tournament, but here I didn’t have it, I needed to immediately start playing 100%, and I think the difficult draw contributed to this,” Andreeva is quoted as saying by the official website of the tournament after her victory over Vekic.

In the second round, our young star had to play Maria Sakkari, who in 2022 was ranked high in third place in the WTA rankings. The Greek also reached the semi-finals twice at Grand Slam tournaments. Recently, the athlete fell outside the top 50, but still posed a serious danger to rivals of any level.

Mirra Andreeva / Photo: © Mark Brake / Stringer / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Greek despair

In the first set, the titled Sakkari, despite her powerful dimensions, could not oppose anything to Andreeva, who acted much more aggressively and accurately. Maria’s statistics looked simply depressing: she did not earn a single actively won ball with 13 unforced errors. By some miracle, the Greek managed to earn three break points due to the Russian’s mistakes, but failed to convert them.

But Andreeva succeeded in her successful reception game. She made breaks three times, and on her serve she always brought the matter to victory in games. It took Mirra only 27 minutes to pin her opponent in the first set – 6:0.

The Russian also started the second game strongly, taking two games in a row. Maria was already throwing up her hands in despair and nervously communicating with the team. It seemed that bringing the match to victory was a matter of technique, but Sakkari suddenly “woke up”. She won 12 draws in a row, which excited the stands, which were filled with many migrants with Greek roots. The fans even started shouting encouragement as their favorite team took the lead for the first time – 3:2.

But the general Greek celebration at Margaret Court Arena quickly ended. The equal fight lasted only three games, after which Mirra again made a break, which became decisive in the match. In the tenth game, our tennis player scored an easy victory in the set – 6:4.

Thanks to this success, Andreeva achieved a cool achievement. The Russian became the youngest tennis player since 2007 to reach the third round of women’s singles at the Australian Open for three years in a row. Nicole Vaidishova was rocking the Melbourne courts when Mirra was not even born.