Rennae Stubbs said she was “impressed” by how Mirra Andreeva came back to beat Aryna Sabalenka in the Indian Wells final but also criticized the 17-year-old for the way she acted in one moment of frustration.
On Sunday, the teenage sensation showed great mental strength and resilience to recover from a set down against the top-ranked player in the game and register a 2-6 6-4 6-3 win for her first Indian Wells title. But before her big comeback started, the new world No. 6 launched the ball into the crowd after dropping the opener.
Lift off #Andreeva pic.twitter.com/xvZOwzNz7y
— Tennis GIFs🎾🎥 (tip jar🫙📌) (@tennis_gifs) March 16, 2025
That act wasn’t appreciated by Stubbs, who worked with Serena Williams during the 2022 US Open and also won five Grand Slam titles in doubles during her career.
Stubbs to Andreeva: I didn’t like to see that
“We saw her hit that ball out of the crowd and she said ‘I am really sorry about how I acted,’ as you would probably say, I think she said in the ceremony, I would call that being a brat,” the former doubles world No. 1 said on the Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast.
“I do not like to see that. I do not like to see balls hit out like that. I do not like to see the way Iga [hit the ball], who also said sorry. And this is coming from who had a pretty good temper on the court but I was not a real ball hitter out the court. I was more of a self-sabotager. This hitting balls out the stadium has got to stop.
After making it perfectly clear how she feels about players firing balls into the stands, Stubbs also proposed the tennis authorities harden the sanction for that. While she agrees that a player instantly being defaulted for sending the ball into the crowd may be too much, the Australian suggested that “losing a game or something enormous” could be the solution.
Tennis World USA