Madison Keys shattered Mirra Andreeva's dreams by coming back from a set and a break down in the fourth round of the 2023 Wimbledon.
The 16-year-old Russian is a generational talent and she keeps proving it with every match that she plays. Andreeva stormed onto the tennis scene when she received a wild card for the 2023 Madrid Open and quickly proved that she deserved it by beating the World No. 14 Beatriz Haddad Maia, still as a 15-year-old.
A few months later, almost every tennis fan heard the name Mirra Andreeva at least once. In 2023, the teenager was beaten only by Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff on the WTA Tour, and after a solid Roland Garros showing, Andreeva wanted to prove her grass-court qualities too.
However, she never played a grass-court event before entering the 2023 Wimbledon and so the expectations were not high. The Russian had to play through the qualifying, showing that she really deserves the spot in the main draw.
But even after making it to the main draw, Andreeva admitted that she's still falling too much on the surface and her first match in the main draw was a challenging one. She had to fight in three sets against Xiyu Wang, but eventually won to mark her first victory at the event.
After that, the 16-year-old kept winning to secure her first second week at the Grand Slam tournament. Playing for a spot in the quarterfinals, Andreeva faced a very difficult opponent as the 25th-seeded Madison Keys has been on an eight-match winning streak after her Eastbourne triumph.
It was obvious that the experience met with the youth in the first match of the Monday's programme as Keys sprinted away early on into a 2-0 lead after winning eight of the first ten rallies. But Andreeva soon started fighting back.
The Russian immediately broke back and after saving a break point in the sixth game of the first set, she used her chance in the following game to lead for the first time in the match. The same scenario followed in the next two games as the American had a chance to break back.
Yet, after that remained unused, the 16-year-old could apply pressure on Keys' serve again, forcing another break point. Using her chance again, Andreeva won the first set 6-3, coming a step closer to making history.
The World No. 102 seemed to be unbothered by what she could achieve, focusing on her game and fighting for every ball also in the second set. Thanks to that, she was up 3-0, and 40-30 early on, having a chance to go up by two breaks.
After failing to use her first chance, Andreeva had one more break point in the sixth game, but her chance remained unused again. So, it was Keys' time. The American didn't need a second invite, using her break point in the seventh game and leveling the score in the second set with another hold of serve.
It was game on after that, as both players held their serves quite comfortably, sending the second set into a tie-break. But the tie-break didn't go well for Andreeva. Keys, on the other hand, kept her cool and used her experience to win it 7-4 and send the match into a decider.
The start of the third set was very similar to the first one. However, this time, the teenager had break points in the first game that she couldn't use. After that, Keys broke her serve as Andreeva double faulted on the break point, and the American enjoyed a 2-0 lead in the third set, the same way she did in the first.
However, this time around, Andreeva seemed to be out of breath. She wasn't able to come back after the initial deficit as Keys controlled the match. When the scoreboard showed 5-2 and 40-40, the youngster slipped and the racquet flew out of her hand, prompting an unsportsmanlike conduct warning from the umpire, along with a point penalty, since the Russian received the warning already after the second set.
She wasn't able to recover from that as Keys won the match 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 to reach the 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinals. The American will now focus on her quarterfinal match, which will be once again against a seeded player. It will be either the 21st-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova, or the second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka.
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