Invited into the main draw, Andreeva knocked out one top-50 player, Canada's Leylah Fernandez (38th), and then two top-20 players, Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia (14th) and Poland's Magda Linette (19th), in the first three rounds. Each time in two rounds.

Against Sabalenka, the march was too high, and the Belarusian won in less than 1h15 min.

In the WTA rankings, it is nevertheless the promise for the young Russian of a jump of fifty places on Monday, synonymous with entering the top 150, when she played only her third professional tournament of the season (after two wins on the secondary circuit).

"It's of course a positive week. I can't describe it in one word because a lot of things happened, I played great matches," says the Siberian, who has been living since the beginning of 2022 in Cannes, on the Côte d'Azur, where she trains under the direction of Jean-René Lisnard and Jean-Christophe Faurel, alongside her older sister Erika, 114th in the world at 18.

From Siberia to Cannes

"At the same time I'm a little upset, because at the beginning (of the match) it was tight, I had a lot of game balls, break balls, and if I had converted them, the score could have been 6-2 in the first set," she said, proof however of her character and her assertive ambitions.

And if she "did not expect to play" the prestigious Madrid tournament, "it is (her) level of play" that she deployed, she says. "I try to play like that in every game, regardless of my opponent."

"Me, at that age, I was probably not even in the top 300 juniors...", recalls his compatriot now N.3 world Daniil Medvedev, who had to scrap him more than 2h 40 min in the third round to get rid of another Russian, Alexander Shevchenko, 96th in the world (4-6, 6-1, 7-5). " I haven't seen her play, but her results are super impressive."

When the Andreeva sisters, who first left their native Siberia for Sochi, on the shores of the Black Sea, to find better training conditions, opted for Cannes, they had the choice with Rafael Nadal's Mallorcan academy, says the youngest.

Asked to describe their respective plays, Mirra Andreeva compares hers to that of Ons Jabeur, and that of her sister to that of Iga Swiatek, the world N.1.

Sixteen wins in three weeks

His defeat against Sabalenka ended a sixteen-game winning streak on the pro circuits that began on April 10 in Switzerland. Before that, Andreeva, who took up tennis at the age of six following in her sister's footsteps, had reached three consecutive junior finals since the start of 2023, including the Australian Open.

After this sequence of matches in three weeks, the Russian teenager will now give himself a little rest, she explains, before, perhaps, returning to competition in Florence in mid-May, a tournament of the secondary circuit.

In the "Caja magica" of Madrid, Sabalenka, crowned at the Australian Open in January and finalist in Stuttgart (Germany) a week ago, will face the unexpected Egyptian Mayar Sherif (59th) in the quarterfinals.

At one o'clock in the morning, the world N.1 Iga Swiatek got the last ticket to the quarterfinals (6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-3) after almost two and a half hours of match against the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova (17th).

The 21-year-old Pole served for the 5-3 win in the second set, then got a match ball in the next game, but Alexandrova delayed the deadline again.

Here is the double champion of Roland-Garros (2020 and 2022) seven out of seven on clay, her favorite surface, in 2023.

As for Medvedev, not very fond of clay, it is a new 100% Russian duel that awaits him in the eighth-finals, against Aslan Karatsev, surprise semifinalist of the Australian Open 2021 fallen out of the top 100.

Like him, the world N.5 and recent finalist in Barcelona Stefanos Tsitsipas needed three sets (7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in nearly 2h15 min) to get rid of the catchy Argentine Sebastian Baez (31st).

© 2023 AFP