INDIAN WELLS: Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva came back to beat world number one Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the BNP Paribas Open on Sunday, making the 17-year-old the tournament’s youngest champion since Serena Williams in 1999.
The 11th-ranked Andreeva improved to 19-3 this season — the most wins by a woman on tour — and collected her second Masters 1000 title of 2025. The other came at Dubai in February, which earned her a top-10 ranking for the first time.
Revisiting a theme from her Dubai victory speech that referred to something rapper Snoop Dogg said when he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Andreeva told Sunday’s crowd: “I would again like to thank myself for fighting until the end and for always believing in me and for never quitting.”
“I tried to run like a rabbit today,” Andreeva continued, praising the way Sabalenka hit speedy shots. “It was really hard to just keep up, so I just tried my best and that’s why I would thank myself, because I think I played a little part [in the win], also.”
In the men’s final later Sunday, Britain’s Jack Draper thrashed Denmark’s Holger Rune 6-2, 6-2 to collect the biggest title of his career with a place in the top 10 assured for the first time.
The 23-year-old Draper has suffered a lingering hip issue this year but looked fine as he zipped around the court with ease, firing 21 winners to cap a superb week in the California desert.
Playing in his fourth Masters 1000 final, Rune had the benefit of experience but could never find his rhythm as he made seven winners against 18 unforced errors.
“I lost first round here last year so I didn’t get to experience the tournament too much,” Draper said. “I would say this is one of my favourite tournaments now.”
Andreeva had lost to Sabalenka twice this year and it looked as though the pattern would continue as the top-seeded Belarusian mixed some nifty drop shots with her usual forehand power to save four break points in the third game.
Sabalenka sent a backhand winner down the line to break in the fourth game and four games later a visibly frustrated Andreeva whacked a ball into the stands after sending a shot into the net as the Russian was broken again.
The teenager got a confidence boost in the second set, however, when she broke Sabalenka with a forehand winner in the third game and fended off two break points in the sixth.
After trading breaks to open the third set, Sabalenka’s errors began to pile up and she fired into the net on break point in the third game to give the ninth seed the advantage.
Andreeva was in full control by the end, giving herself a match point on Sabalenka’s serve with a defensive lob that forced a miss from the number one and clinching victory with a forehand winner.
“After the first set, I just realised, that, ‘oh, well, what I do now, it doesn’t work, so I have to change something’,” Andreeva told reporters.
“In the second set, I tried to play a little bit more aggressive. I didn’t try to over hit her, because I don’t think anyone can over hit Aryna, because she’s super-powerful player.
“I tried to really, I don’t know, create something to make her uncomfortable, and, you know, point-by-point, game-by-game, I managed to do that.”
Playing in his first 1000-level final, Draper bludgeoned his opponent with seven aces in the first set, having hit a forehand winner to break in the first game and outfoxed Rune at the net in the third to go up another break.
The Dane’s frustrations boiled over early in the second set, where he shouted at his team before dropping serve in the first game. He handed Draper another break in the penultimate game with a backhand shot that he sent wide.
Draper fired a booming forehand shot on match point and smiled towards the stands before kneeling on court with his fists thrust into the air in celebration, clinching it in just one hour and nine minutes.
Draper, a US Open semi-finalist last year whose preparations for 2025 were hindered by a flare-up of hip tendinitis, did not have an easy path to the final, having to beat 2022 winner Taylor Fritz in the last 16, and had to contain his nerves after beating back-to-back defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals on Saturday night.
He said his biggest title to date was a testament to his perseverance.
“I feel like I deserve it, in all honesty,” he said. “It’s an emotional feeling to know how much you’ve gone through and put in and to be here now to say that I’m going to be number seven in the world tomorrow, I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2025