After a bizarre beginning in which the players traded two straight breaks of serve, Mirra Andreeva overwhelmed Maja Chwalińska in straight sets to claim the first major final win of her career.
Andreeva ended a Cinderella run by Chwalińska and became the youngest French Open women’s champion since Monica Seles in 1992.
Here’s how she did it.
Andreeva’s dynamite forehand and backhand won the day
While Andreeva mixed up her shots well with some slice, particularly from the forehand side, it was when she went on the attack that made all the difference. Andreeva, from both the forehand and the backhand, was simply overpowering.
Yes, the Russian did spray some balls at times, but it was merely a means to the end of her aggressive approach, which kept Chwalińska on her back foot throughout many of the rallies. Andreeva dictated points on her forehand, while her crosscourt backhand was a dependable weapon throughout the match.
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Not only was Andreeva’s baseline power evident from the eye test, but it was also apparent in the numbers. She fired 25 winners to Chwalińska’s 10, and 17 of those winners came on groundstrokes. Of Andreeva’s 26 unforced errors, just five of them came on her groundstrokes, which gives you an idea of her ruthless combination of precision and power.
Chwalińska, throughout her unbelievable French Open run, proved she could handle pace and power. But the 19-year-old’s high-octane baseline game ultimately proved to be too much for the Polish upstart to handle on Saturday.
Chwalińska’s serve failed her
There’s an old adage in tennis: You’re only as good as your second serve. In that regard, Chwalińska was simply not good enough to win a title on Saturday. She had two double faults in the match, one of which lost her a game to Andreeva, and she won just 18% of points on her second serve compared to 55% from Andreeva.
Whether it was the wind, nerves or a combination of the two, Chwalińska never looked comfortable on the second serve and it gave Andreeva a tactical opening to further dictate the points on her terms.
And with the margin for error slim given her 29 unforced errors, Chwalińska, who had fired the third-most aces in the tournament, needed the easy points that her first serve could have provided. But she failed to rack up even one ace in the match, something that also hurt the Polish sensation.
Andreeva was teflon-strong mentally when she needed to be
Andreeva has lost her cool on the court in the past to her demise in matches, most notably back in March during a third-round loss at Indian Wells. And facing a gritty counterpuncher in Chwalińska in the gusty winds on Court Philippe-Chatrier seemed to be the perfect recipe to perhaps get Andreeva’s blood pressure up a few ticks.
But to her credit, the 19-year-old kept a level head and didn’t let the ebbs and flows of the match affect her bottom line. This was never more apparent than in the second set, when, after breaking Chwalińska to go up 2-0, Andreeva suddenly found herself facing a 0-40 hole on serve.
It was an opening for Chwalińska, but Andreeva, with a patient, unrelenting baseline game, slammed the door shut on any opportunity for her opponent by winning the next five points to hold serve and go up 3-0.
Winning a major final is as much mental as it is physical, and Andreeva was a textbook example of that, not only on Saturday but throughout an outstanding tournament.
Andreeva beat Chwalińska at her own game
Entering the match, I thought the windy conditions would favor Chwalińska, whose moonball-type shot from the baseline gave her a bigger margin for error. And while the world No. 114 came out with her trademark variety and yes, moonballs, it was Andreeva who wasn’t afraid to engage her moonball for moonball and slice for slice.
Andreeva got her hands dirty when she needed to, and was equally comfortable firing pace and spin on the forehand and backhand as she was sending a lob or a slice right back at Chwalińska.
The combination of power, finesse and defense was unlike anything Chwalińska had seen in the tournament up to this point, and it clearly had her off-balance.
