Mirra Andreeva's Breakthrough in Paris

A new champion has arrived in Paris. We break down Mirra Andreeva's historic Roland Garros triumph, the key moments that shaped the Women's Final, and what her breakthrough Grand Slam title means for the future of the women's game.

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Transcript

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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Off the Court. We are giving you guys a quick little recap from the women's final. Yes, the women's final. I cannot believe we are at the end of Roland Garris. The men's final is a little later on today. The women's final was wrapped up. We have a new champion, Mira Andreva. Congratulations, the 19-year-old has won her first Grand Slam title after making her first final, which is so unheard of, but also such a fun and cool achievement. She did obviously take out Maya Schwinska, who had had an insane tournament. The qualifier who, coming into Roland Garris, was unsure, I'm sure you guys have seen it everywhere, was unsure if she could even pay for her hotel room to span the three weeks of the tournament because she obviously played qualifying, which is the week before the two-week main draw. And here she was at the final playing against Mira Andreva, a top 10 player on one of the biggest stages in the world. And now she, which is so lovely to see, she, you know, has bagged $1.7 million. That is the amount that you get for playing in the final if you are the runner-up. Um and she has got over a hundred sponsor offers, which is just so nice to see. Um to see up-and-coming talent, or not even up and coming, because she's a little older than that up and coming typical age bracket. But to see players that haven't had their moment to have their moment, it's so nice. Like on the men's final a little later today, we're gonna see Kabali have his moment in a final. Um, and obviously Sasha has been there four times before. So hopefully he can get the job done today. But we will see as uh that match takes play later. We will obviously recap that in an episode tomorrow where we recap the whole entire tournament. Um, but I just wanted to sort of go through the match. Obviously, the first set was a little back and forth. It was all mirror. Um I would say from get-go, but it was also up and back, up and back with breakpoints of the game. Um, and there was a lot of a lot of belief, I would say, from Mira that she was able to close it out super early. It was only a two-step match, an hour, and I think around about 40 something minutes, maybe a little less than that. Um, but for that score line to look as simple as it was, but it really wasn't. Like Maya played well. She played some great shots, the conditions were horrendous. Um, as you guys know, the clay conditions there have not been favorable this tournament with the wind and the weather changes. The first week there was so much uh heat. The second week it's been a little cooler, but there's been a lot of wind. So there's just been a lot of changes with the clay. Um, and with that being said, it did create some very unpleasant conditions for the first set yesterday. Um, but it was so nice to see um Maya still giving her all, like literally um giving her all, pushing through, um, and really just like, you know, continuing on that path of like belief as well. And of course, Mira had that from the beginning. 6'3, 6'2, final score line. Um, you know, but I want to also talk about the fact that Maya took out some pretty big names to make it there. You know, she took out Callan Skyer, who's seeded 22nd, she took out Maria Sachary in the third round, she took out Elise Meertons in the second round. In a semifinal, she took out Schneider. Um, these are pretty, these are not easy opponents. They're all tricky. They all have a tricky game, but so does she. Um, so the fact that she was able to, you know, come back from a set down in the third round against Sachary to then make it all the way to the final is just crazy. Um, and obviously for Mira, she had a, I wouldn't say an easy draw either, but it wasn't with the way things changed, it wasn't the, you know, the best nor the easiest, but she did take out Kostic in the semifinal, of course. She took out Sirstero in the quarterfinal, Tetchman in the fourth round, um, and Buskova in the third round, Bazolez Rivera in the second, and Ferro in the first. So the first two rounds sort of was a little more cruisy for Andreva. Um, because of the removal of Goth and Swyatek and Sabalenka before the quarterfinals, it really sort of twisted things for her to set her up for that easier maneuver. Um, she only dropped a set in the second round against Basolov Rivera. She did lose the first set, but didn't drop any sets against Kostiak, which is insane because Mata was 17-0 coming into that match. Um, and for the semifinal to be played out as strongly as she did, Andreva just almost wiped Mata off the court. It didn't look like it was going to change anything. So that was really quite surprising. Um, but yes, we have a new Roland Garrett champion on the women's side. Uh, we have some new rankings which will come out on Monday, as you guys know. Um, we do have uh Maya moving in to the top 30 um based on her results. I want to say let's have a look. Um let's have a look here. So she's going to climb 90 positions, um, and she'll be ranked world number 21 following her historic run at Roland Garrett. She's gonna go from 114 to world number 21. Insane, unheard of. Um, and that's the result of becoming the first qualifier in the open era to reach a Grand Slam singles final on the men's and women's side. So crazy. Um, her 10-year journey to the Roland Garris final, from where she came to where she is, um, and climbing 90 positions in the rankings, it can happen. Dreams do come true on those courts. It can happen. We've seen it happen plenty of times before. Um, so yeah, it's just really cool to see. It's really exciting. Um, there will be a lot more to see of Maya. This will not be the last we have to see of Maya. I do think we have a new three-peat Grand Slam champion. I don't think Mira will win any less than three Grand Slams. She may even win more. She's only 19 years old. It's the world is kind of her oyster, to be perfectly honest. Um, we have got Serena back on tour in what capacity. We don't really know yet as as we move into Queens. Um, but Serena and Moboko are the number three seeds at the Queens tournament. So let's see how that goes. Let's see how she plays. She is also going to play a few other tournaments as well that she has announced. Um, and of course, Sabalinka has confirmed she's definitely not quitting tennis, um, despite her press conference and her comments there. Um, and we will see her obviously at Wimbledon um and in the future. So stay tuned. Women's tennis is back uh tomorrow. Today um at Queens, and we have wrapped up at Roland Garris. Stay tuned for the men's final in just a couple of hours' time. You guys will not want to miss this. Sasha Zvarev takes on Flavio Caboli. And I also want to give a massive shout out to Air Allo for keeping us connected wherever we are in the world. If you guys don't know what Air Allo is, it is an eSIM company that lets you connect with wonderful data packages wherever you are in the world. And you can pick from over 200 countries, head to the description, check them out, get a cheeky little discount. Trust me, you guys will not regret it. Bye for now.