Mirra Andreeva: How the 17-Year-Old Russian Tennis Sensation Is Taking the Tour by Storm

Lead-in On a windswept afternoon at Roland-Garros, 18-year-old Mirra Andreeva saw her dream of a maiden Grand Slam semi-final dissolve in a flurry of errors and visible frustration, falling 3-6, 6-4, 2-6 to French wild card Loïs Boisson, ranked No. 361 in the world, in the French Open 2025 quarter-finals. Rising star meets home-court hero • Andreeva entered Paris as the tournament’s sixth seed after surging to a career-high No. 6 WTA ranking earlier this spring. • Boisson, cheered on by a raucous Court Suzanne-Lenglen crowd, saved two set points in the opening stanza before capitalising on Andreeva’s 45 unforced errors to claim the biggest win of her career. • The Russian teenager’s temper flared late in the third set—she fired a ball into the stands after dropping serve at 0-3, drawing a code violation that further shifted momentum toward the Frenchwoman. Road to the quarter-finals Round 1: d. Céline Naef 6-2, 6-1 Round 2: d. Anhelina Kalinina 7-5, 6-3 Round 3: d. Linda Nosková 6-4, 6-0 Round 4: d. Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 What went wrong Analysts pointed to Andreeva’s first-serve percentage, which dipped to 49 %, and her reluctance to deploy the drop-shot that had dismantled Kasatkina two days earlier. Boisson attacked second serves, winning 61 % of those points and forcing Andreeva behind the baseline—a position from which the Russian produced 23 forehand miscues. Quote of the day “I tried to stay calm, but the noise was incredible,” Andreeva admitted in the mixed zone. “I need to learn how to handle these moments if I want to win Slams.” Ranking implications Although the loss stalls Andreeva’s bid to crack the top 5 before Wimbledon, she defends only second-round points on grass and remains well-positioned for a seeding inside the top 8 at the All England Club, provided she rebounds during the Berlin and Bad Homburg tune-ups. What’s next • Mirra Andreeva is scheduled to open her grass-court swing at the ecotrans Ladies Open in Berlin (10 June). • Coach Jean-René Lisnard confirmed that mental-conditioning sessions have been added to her pre-Wimbledon program to “channel competitive fire more productively.” Why the upset matters Boisson becomes the lowest-ranked woman to reach a Roland-Garros semi-final since 1997, electrifying home fans and opening up the bottom half of the draw for Coco Gauff and Iga Świątek. For Andreeva, the defeat is a sharp reminder that raw talent must be matched by composure—a storyline likely to shape the rest of the 2025 season.