Rennae Stubbs says Mirra Andreeva reminds her a bit of the young versions of Roger Federer and Madison Keys as the former six-time Grand Slam champion in doubles warns the competition to take the rising Russian star very seriously.
While the 17-year-old got off to an outstanding start to her career and has been an established WTA player since mid-2023, it is not a secret that she lost some matches because of allowing frustration to get the better of her.
But last week in Dubai, everything clicked for the Russian, who became the youngest-ever WTA 1000 champion and also secured breaking into the top-10 for the first time in her career.
Following her historic triumph, new world No. 9 Andreeva revealed that she has been working with a sports psychologist lately and that it helped her in Dubai – especially during back-to-back matches against Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina.
If you remember well, Federer was no stranger to losing his composure and breaking rackets very early in his career.
After that was successfully addressed, the rest became history.
Stubbs draws the similarity between Andreeva, Federer & Keys
“Mirra Andreeva, to me, is similar [to Madison Keys] in a lot of ways because she was such a mental case on the court at times and I was like, ‘Is this kid ever going to reel this in?’ And now she looks like a completely different player,” the former doubles world No. 1 said on the Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast.
“I mean, it’s the same as Roger Federer when he was a junior. He was a psycho. And then he gets to play pro and he realized really quickly, ‘Oh, that doesn’t work. This works.’
“So that’s why everyone should be afraid of Mirra, and that’s why everyone should be afraid of Madison, because mentally, they are both switched on to what works now and what is successful.”
Meanwhile, Andreeva revealed that she now has a new target and that’s to make the top-5 at some point this year.
Tennis World USA