Martina Hingis reveals Mirra Andreeva reached out to her during the 2024 season and offered a coaching job, but although she is a major admirer of the rising star’s game, she couldn’t accept it due to family stuff.
For the past year and a half, the Russian – who turned 17 in April – has been making the headlines for all the good reasons and already achieving very notable feats and records.
When she reached the French Open semifinal in May shortly after her 17th birthday, Andreeva became the youngest Grand Slam semifinalist since Hingis at the 1997 US Open and also the youngest semifinalist at Roland Garros since the Swiss tennis legend in 1997.
Mirra Andreeva/Instagram – Fair Use© Mirra Andreeva/Instagram – Fair Use
Also, she won her maiden WTA title in Iasi in July before achieving a career-high ranking of No. 16 in the world.
And Andreeva, who has drawn some comparisons to Hingis since the Swiss also started doing major things during her teenage years, wanted the former five-time Grand Slam champion to be her coach.
Hingis: I am a big fan of Andreeva and then she asked me if I wanted to coach her
“It was also funny, because this year she asked me if I would wanna coach her,. And I’m a big fan of hers, the way she plays. Unfortunately I couldn’t take that job because of my daughter going to kindergarten and I’m not able to travel as much,” the former world No. 1 revealed on Australian Open’s The Sit-Down podcast.
“But Conchita Martinez is doing a great job with helping her on the way and defining her game and making her a better player. So we’ll see how far she’s going to take it.”
On the podcast, Hingis also shared that she would like to see the 17-year-old become more aggressive going forward in “taking the ball on the rise, and step in and move forward.”
If Andreeva does that, the 44-year-old expects the Russian to soon join the top-10 club.
Tennis World USA