Teenager Mirra Andreeva battled back from a 5-1 deficit in the final set to move on to the fourth round of the Australian Open in night action on Friday in Melbourne.
The 16-year-old Russian fought off one match point and won five straight games en route to her 1-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5) triumph over Diane Parry of France.
Parry had two opportunities to serve out the match in the third set and was broken twice – five times Andreeva broke serve. Parry had a match point with Andreeva serving 5-2, 30-40 but couldn’t close the match.
Andreeva cruised through the 10-point tiebreaker for the win in two hours, 23 minutes.
“I would prefer to win in straight sets. I think everybody would,” she said after the match. “But it’s also good to win when you’re fighting for every point. I think I will have a lot of matches like this in my career. I’m just happy with the win. I don’t care how I win exactly with the score and the time, I just want to win.
“If it takes three sets, then I’m happy to win with three sets. If it takes two sets, then, of course, I’m happy to win with two sets.”
She topped No. 6 Ons Jabeur in the second round by a 6-0, 6-2 margin.
Andreeva reached the final 16 at Wimbledon last year. She is just the fourth player in the past 30 years to reach the fourth round in both London and Melbourne before age 17. Coco Gauff was the most recent woman to do it.
Next to face Andreeva will be No. 9 seed Barbora Krejcikova, who won the 2021 French Open. The Czech reached the second week of a grand slam event for the seventh time with her victory Australian qualifier Storm Hunter, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, in two hours and 30 minutes.
Andreeva and Krejcikova have played twice, and Andreeva advanced both times.
“The last two times I played against her, I barely won a couple of games,” Krejcikova said following the match. “So, we will see. It’s going to be another difficult match. I’m just going to try to be third-time lucky.”
Also advancing to the fourth round was another young Russian, 20-year-old Maria Timofeeva, who upset No. 10 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia 7-6 (7), 6-3. The Brazilian was hurt by 35 unforced errors against only 18 winners.
Timofeeva will go head-to-head against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in the next round. Kostyuk topped another Russian, Elina Avanesyan, by a 2-6, 6-6, 6-4 margin on Friday.
