MELBOURNE: It was the kind of day that should've come with an advisory, don't expect much to get done, if anything at all. In the first half at least. It poured buckets all morning and Melbourne Park looked primed for a water sport competition. Mirra Andreeva, 16, playing under the roof at Rod Laver, delivered a storm of her own as she raced to a 6-0, 6-2 win over her idol the sixth seeded Tunisian Ons Jabeur.
"I'm really inspired by Ons, by the way she plays and also the way she is off the court," said the teenager in a lemon yellow ensemble. "She's so nice. Now, after the match, she wished me luck. I know who she is and she never changes."
"I was really nervous before the match, but I saw that she was nervous too," Andreeva said. "It helped me because I know I'm not the only one who is nervous before the match. I decided to just enjoy it. It's Rod Laver Arena, I'm playing against the person that I like. I decided just to play."
Last January, on the same court, Andreeva lost the girls singles final to her good friend Alina Korneeva.
"After I lost the final, I was super upset. I didn't think about anything else for maybe a week. I was just replaying the match in my head, and I was thinking, I should have changed this, I should have changed that. After all my complaints to myself, I decided to move on," Andreeva said. "Then when I saw that I play on Rod Laver today, I said that this time I have to take my chance and I have to win on the big court for the first time," she added.
Wednesday's win was Andreeva's first over a top-ten player. Next up for the teenager in the third round is France's Diane Parry, who she beat in the second round in Roland Garros.
