LONDON: Mirra Andreea believes there are plenty of positives to be drawn from her breakthrough run at Wimbledon, but admits there is room for improvement too.
The 18-year-old missed out on a place in the semi-finals after losing in two tiebreak sets to Belinda Bencic, who is only the second Swiss woman to reach the last four at SW19 after Martina Hingis. Heading into the clash, Andreeva was the favourite for many after having won a duo of WTA 100 titles and recording six wins over top 10 players since January.
However, she was edged out by Bencic, who is playing on the Tour less than a year after returning to the sport following the birth of her first child. Andreeva produced more winners than her opponent (35-20) but also leaked a lot more unforced errors (37-24).
“She was playing good today. At some points, I felt like I could have played better,” said Andreeva.
“A little bit more focused, less mistakes and more aggressive.
“Today is a hard day, but I can take a lot of positives from these two weeks, for sure. We’re going to move on and improve.”
As to what the world No.7 intends to work on, she says her coach, Chonchita Martinez, has ‘plenty of things’ in her mind. Martinez is a former Wimbledon champion who has also previously worked with Garbine Muguruza and Karolina Pliskova.
“The next practice I have, I’m going to try to focus on practicing on being aggressive, trying to step into the court when I play points, maybe play even more volleys, keep improving my serve and my returns,” Andreeva outlined.
“There are plenty of things that Conchita has in mind. We are going to talk about it. We’re going to share our thoughts, and we’re going to go from there.”
Andreeva, who is the youngest player to reach a Wimbledon quarter-final since Nicole Vaidisova in 2007, also points out her improvements on the Tour. One of the biggest is her mentality on the court.
“When I’m on the court and something is not working and doesn’t go my way, I get frustrated because I want everything to be perfect,” she explains.
“But we all know that perfection doesn’t exist, especially on the tennis court. I used to struggle a lot with this, not kind of forgiving myself for making a mistake or just putting the wrong shot in the court.
“Now I feel like it’s getting better. I feel like it can maybe bother me for, I don’t know, one, two points.”
Andreeva is currently the youngest player in the top 50.
