She may only be 17 years old, but at Indian Wells Mirra Andreeva is like the next superstar of female tennis.
Tuesday, Andreeva, the ninth seeded from the draw, rolled up too much trouble against Elena Rybakina, seventh seeded, the open champion of the BNP 2023.
The 6-1, 6-2 victory in stadium 2 of the Wells Indian tennis garden was dominant. The match only lasted 64 minutes, apart from delays.
The victory made of Andreeva the youngest player to reach the quarter -finals of the Indian Wells since Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who was also 17 years old in 2009.
Even the rain delays could not derail the Russian tennis star and the momentum she generated at the start of the match, before the game was interrupted. She was actually even more dominant after her return from delays, winning four consecutive games to take the first set.
Andreeva, who will not be 18 years old before April 29, will now face Elina Svitolina in the quarterfinals of the Indian Wells on Thursday.
Andreeva won nine consecutive games, returning to the title she won last month in Dubai. She is the youngest to win nine consecutive WTA 1000 games since the introduction of the format.
She has 16-3 this season, with two of these defeats against Aryna Sabalenka, the best classified.
By winning the title of Dubai last month, Andreeva became the youngest champion of the WTA 1000 in the history of the format, which brought her to the top 10 for the first time in her career.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Mirra Andreeva makes headers of Wells Indian with a victory over Elena Rybakina
