Could These Russians Become Tennis’ Next Great Sister Act?

Long day for the Andreeva family.

First, she had to get up early to get Mirra, a 16-year-old Russian, ready for her debut at the French Open at 11am against Alison Riske-Amritraj of the United States. Mirra was as efficient as can be, finishing her match in 56 minutes on Tuesday by improvising a series of easy, smooth winners against an opponent twice her age.

“I just play the way I feel inside,” she said.

Then came a long wait for Mirra’s older sister, 18-year-old Erika, who was last on court No. 14 against Emma Navarro, another American. She appeared in court in Paris just after 7:30 p.m. As the sun sank down to the banks of the Seine, she gave all the energy she had to try and emulate her sister’s success before Navarro won in three sets, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, despite Andreeva showed a lot. promise.

One family, more than a dozen hours on the Roland Garros grounds, a 16-year-old in the second round and an 18-year-old who came oh so close. The same goes for tennis’ newest sister act.

If this all sounds a little familiar, it should. Sister acts aren’t exactly new to women’s tennis, which was dominated for more than two decades by American duo Serena and Venus Williams. They won a total of 30 Grand Slam singles titles. Venus Williams, 42, is still not retired, although another major title seems unlikely.

More recently, Japan’s Naomi Osaka and her sister Mari had their moments, though Mari never moved higher than 280th in singles before retiring in 2021 at age 24. Canada’s Leylah Fernandez, a 2021 US Open finalist, teams up in doubles with her younger sister Bianca. This main draw of the French Open even had a sister duo: Linda and Brenda Fruhvirtova from the Czech Republic. Both lost their matches in the opening round.

Coaches and parents—who are often one and the same—say the reasons for sisterly success are pretty obvious: never having to look far for an exercise partner. Also, the younger sibling grows up with the motivation to try and catch up with the older one. And yet the achievement feels a little amazing every time, especially when the journey begins in Siberia, as it did for the Andreevas.

Mirra said her mother, Raisa, fell in love with the sport while watching Russia’s Marat Safin at the 2005 Australian Open when he won the tournament. She then decided that she wanted her children to be tennis players.

As a toddler, Mirra accompanied her sister to her sister’s tennis practices and matches. At the age of six she started playing seriously herself. With the girls showing promise early on, the family moved from Siberia, which wasn’t exactly teeming with tennis players or tennis-friendly weather, to Sochi, Russia, with a mild climate on the Black Sea, and then to Cannes, France, where they enrolled for a tennis academy.

Mirra said she was about 8 years old when she entered her first international tennis tournament, an under-12 competition in Germany, where she made it to the semifinals. At age 12, a recruiter for IMG, the sports and entertainment company, spotted her at a top junior tournament.

“She was a small player but she was feisty and fighting and just ran for the ball and a great competitor and that made all the difference,” said Juan Acuna Gerard, an IMG agent. “Our recruiter said, ‘This girl is special.’ She was undersized for her age, but very competitive.”

The company now also represents Erika.

Last month, still under 16, Mirra became one of the youngest players to beat a top 20 opponent, defeating Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia en route to the round of 16 at the Madrid Open.

She said she wasn’t nervous then, or before her game on Tuesday. She needed her alarm clock to wake her up in the morning.

“I was excited, but in a good way, you know?” Mirra said.

The Andreeva sisters worked under the radar on a day when much of Roland Garros was abuzz with one of the biggest upsets in recent memory, when Brazil’s Thiago Seyboth Wild, 172nd in men’s singles, defeated Daniil Medvedev, the former No. 1 of the world who is the second seed at the French Open, in five sets.

Medvedev, who excels on hard courts, has never been a fan of clay tennis and has never had much success at Roland Garros. But he won the final at the Italian Open earlier this month, the main clay-court tournament ahead of the French Open. It seemed that the victory was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Medvedev, the creative Russian and the red clay. He declared himself cautiously optimistic about his chances.

But Medvedev never felt comfortable on a blustery Tuesday afternoon, shooting balls into the wind, making 15 double fouls and catching an opponent who played the game of his life.

“Every time it’s done, I’m happy,” Medvedev said of his clay-court season. “I had a mouthful of clay from the third game of the match.”

Mirra Andreeva had no such problems. Her biggest problem of the day was that her sister’s game started too late for her to keep watching it. That might have been for the best. She said she gets a lot more nervous watching her sister’s games than playing her own.

Tuesday night would have caused a lot of jitters. Erika dropped a messy first set, worked her way to a draw with a clinic in tennis defense, then shot to a 3-0 lead in the deciding set, to see Navarro find her groove and win six of the next seven games . Sitting in the front row and quietly urging her daughter on all night, Raisa finally left her seat when Erika’s lead slipped.

The loss forced Mirra to carry the family torch for the rest of Paris. She takes on France’s Diane Parry on Thursday, not an easy task, but beating chemistry, the class she said messes her up in her online school.

“Chemistry is so bad,” she said. “I do not understand anything about it.”

Tennis, on the other hand, is much more natural. Her coaches – she and Erika have separate coaches – give her a game plan before each game. She listens, takes it in and forgets what she’s been told almost as soon as she walks onto the field, playing by feel instead.

“If I feel like I have to take a drop shot, even if the score isn’t really suitable for a drop shot, then I’ll do it anyway,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

For now, she doesn’t have to.