Wandering nerves: Mirra did not defend the title, Medvedev continues to fight
The Indian Wells Super Tournaments are going badly for the Russians. According to the results of the third round, not a single representative of our country remained in the women's bracket. Oksana Selekhmetyeva was eliminated in the first round, Anastasia Zakharova, Anna Blinkova, Diana Schneider, Ekaterina Alexandrova, Lyudmila Samsonova in the second, Anna Kalinskaya and Mirra Andreeva in the third. For Mirra, a defeat by Katerina Sinyakova earlier cost 935 points, now she is likely to leave the top 10. For men, only Daniil Medvedev continues to fight for the trophy. Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev lost their opening matches. However, there are objective reasons for this.
Andreeva's breakdown
A year ago, the tennis community admired the talent, age records and childlike spontaneity of Mirra Andreeva, who defeated world number one Arina Sobolenko in the Indian Wells final and took the thousandth trophy for the second time in a row. Alas, now everything has radically changed for the worse — the 18-year-old Russian not only failed to defend her title for the second time in a row, but also unpleasantly impressed the audience with her inability to hold a punch and lose with dignity.
The defeat of Argentinean Solana Sierra with two "steering wheels" in the opening match of Indian Wells, apparently, played a cruel joke with Andreeva. In the match against Katerina Sinyakova, Mirra repeatedly lost her concentration and failed to show her best tennis at key moments of the match. The representative of the Czech Republic with Russian roots is one of the strongest pairs on the planet, but in the singles ranking she is not even in the top 40. Sinyakova was definitely not the favorite, but nevertheless the two-time Olympic champion managed to create a sensation.
Although after the Russian won back from 0-3 and took the first set, it seemed that she was in full control of the game and would not miss her chance. However, the experienced competitor was not going to give up and made a successful unsportsmanlike attempt to slow down the favorite. Katerina began to complain to the referee on the tower that the Russian woman pauses too little between serves and does not allow her to properly prepare for the reception. The referee, Chinese Zhang Huang, did not see any particular crime in such behavior, but Andreeva lost her drive during the dispute, which eventually affected the quality of the game.
The second game was full of mutual mistakes and ended with Andreeva's nervous breakdown. In the fifth game, Sinyakova took the lead with a break, but Mirra immediately regained her balance. At the end of the game, the Czech again took the lead, and the Russian again held out, bringing the matter to a tie-break. In general, tennis performed by our girl looked brighter and more diverse, but she was constantly missing something. With the score 5-5 in the tiebreak, Andreeva was two draws away from the overall victory, but first she sent the ball into the net with a forehand, and then she screwed up a fairly simple shot without hitting the court.
Angered by the missed chance, Mirra threw her racket onto the court, receiving a reprimand for unsportsmanlike behavior, and then demanded that her coaching staff leave the podium. Conchita Martinez obeyed at first, and then slowly returned, but Andreeva's concentration was not enough for long anyway. In the sixth game of the third set, the Russian took her opponent's serve from the fourth break ball, but immediately missed the Czech counterattack. With the score 3:5, our athlete continued to fight, but luck was on Katerina's side again — she won the final draw by hitting the ball into the rope. The Czech woman immediately apologized, but this was little consolation for Mirra, who was again seized by a fit of anger and resentment.
After smashing her racket and cursing, the Russian woman left the court in tears and on the way managed to quarrel with a group of fans who either booed or tried to support her.
"I'm not proud of it, I don't like it at all," Mirra admitted at a press conference.
Justifying herself, the Russian woman also said that what she said was directed primarily at herself.
"This is the first time Mirra is facing pressure when she needs to confirm a large number of points," former world number one in doubles Elena Vesnina told Izvestia. — Due to her youth, Andreeva is still unable to cope with emotions, but all great tennis players go through this. It's an experience. It's a shame that she didn't win this match, because the course of the match was completely under her control. But at some point, she missed the thread of the game and began to act as convenient for her opponent. Mirra was much stronger and should have defeated Sinyakova in two sets.
Without acclimatization
In the men's bracket, elite players also suffered defeats in the early stages. Sixth-seeded Alex de Minaur, seventh-seeded Taylor Fritz, eighth-seeded Ben Shelton, and 10th-seeded Alexander Bublik have already left the Indian Wells tournament. Two Russians also lost their opening matches: Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov. Andrey couldn't handle Gabriel Dialo, Karen was eliminated by the young talent of Juan Fonseca. Recall that due to the closure of the transport hub in the UAE, Russian tennis players reached the United States just a couple of days before their matches and probably did not have time to get used to the time zone.
Daniil Medvedev found himself in a similar situation, but so far he is speaking quite confidently in the United States. In the 1/32 finals, the leader of our tennis beat Alejandro Tabilo, and in the third round he defeated Sebastian Baez. The 25-year-old Argentine has already scored two wins over top-10 opponents this season. Baes defeated Fritz at the United Cup in early January, and Shelton at the ATP 250 in Auckland in the middle of the month.
Daniel could well have become Sebastian's third "trophy" — in the first set, Baes acted very well and took his serves without problems at the start, which could not be said about Medvedev. However, in the fifth game, our tennis player finally caught on and, with great difficulty, made a break on the fifth attempt.
But it didn't get any easier. In the very next game, the Argentine went out on a double break point himself, the Russian had to fight back. Sebastian clearly did not plan to give up: in the ninth game, with the score 5-3 in favor of Daniil, he defended against a double set ball and defended no less well at the finish. Medvedev took the tenth game — and the entire set — on only the third attempt. Apparently, Baes left a lot of energy at the start — in the second set he did not go at all, and in less than half an hour he lost with a "steering wheel".
The victory over Baez was Medvedev's sixth in a row. In addition, he has already played 15 successful matches this season. According to this indicator, he leads the tour, ahead of even the first racket of the world — Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, who has scored 14 victories so far. In the fourth round, Medvedev will face American Alex Mickelsen, with whom he leads 3-0 in face-to-face meetings. Let's remind that last year Daniil reached the semi-finals of this Masters.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
