Mirra Andreeva would like to play a lot of tennis, but there are rules in place preventing her from doing that, and she talked about that after her most recent Australian Open win.
When you think of a 16-year-old player, you probably wouldn't think she's one of the 20 best players in the world. Whether she is or not remains to be seen, but her level of tennis certainly looks like it.
Take her most recent match against Ons Jabeur at the 2024 Australian Open. She bested the Tunisian 6-0 6-2 to advance to the third round, and that's a huge win. The score might be surprising, but not many were surprised by her victory.
We've seen her doing this a few times already, even though she's only 16 years old. Her level is good enough to be competitive every week, and she likely would find herself in the Top 20 of the WTA Rankings if she could play a full schedule.
Unfortunately, she can't because there are rules in place that prevent players her age (16) from playing more than a maximum amount of 12 events. She talked about that following the win over Jabeur.
"Well, yeah, that's the rules, but you cannot go against the rules. Last year we decided to add more exhibition tournaments, to play more matches. They invited me to play in World Tennis League."
The Australian Open is already her second event in 2024, and that means that she won't be able to play in more than ten other events this year. Three of them will be the Grand Slams, and when you add the bigger WTA 1000 events, it doesn't leave much space for her to play smaller tournaments.
it's kind of limiting, but as she said, those are the rules, and she'll have to play by the rules. If she keeps playing like she did recently, she'll certainly find herself in the Top 20 regardless.
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