Legendary tennis coach Rick Macci has identified a quality that sets Mirra Andreeva apart as he made a claim about how many Grand Slam titles the teenage star will win in her career.<\/p>\n
Andreeva<\/a>, who celebrated her 18th birthday in April, has already reached lofty heights since turning pro in 2022 and has been at a career-high ranking of world No 5 since July.<\/p>\n The Russian has won three singles titles, having lifted her maiden title at the WTA 250 event in Iasi in 2024 and secured back-to-back WTA 1000 events in Dubai and Indian Wells earlier this season.<\/p>\n Andreeva\u2019s best Grand Slam result to date was reaching the semi-finals at the 2024 French Open, while she was a quarter-finalist at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon this summer.<\/p>\n In an exclusive interview Tennis365, Macci<\/a> did not hesitate to name Andreeva when asked who he expects to challenge the top WTA trio of Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n \u201cNo doubt about it, the new sheriff in town: Mirra Andreeva. She\u2019s one of the best young prospects I\u2019ve seen in a long time,\u201d the American said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the reason why: mentally, she is cut from a different cloth, she\u2019s a brutal, brutal competitor. She\u2019s more mature now. But what she does a little bit different, she changes direction of the ball very early in the point.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we all know there\u2019s a fine line between courage and stupidity. At the end of the day, this is what she does and she gets you out of your comfort zone. So that\u2019s number one and she does that with conviction and with confidence.<\/p>\n WTA China Open Draw: Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Emma Raducanu learn their fate<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n WTA Rankings: Iga Swiatek closes gap to Aryna Sabalenka, Emma Raducanu hits her goal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd people gotta take a step back and understand, she\u2019s only 18 and she\u2019s five in the world. So I see greatness, and the thing about her game, once she gets into that number one category \u2014 one, two [in the rankings] \u2014 she\u2019s not going anywhere, because she has too much competitiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s actually a very good mover, even though it was a little shaky on the clay and it took her a while to get going on the grass \u2013 I\u2019m not worried about that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd let\u2019s face it, most of the tournaments are on hard-court. But Mirra Andreeva\u2019s the real deal and I think her future is as bright as anybody. A double digit Grand Slam winner.\u201d<\/p>\n Macci continued: \u201cI called this a couple of years ago, I knew where this was going. She (Andreeva) is gonna be number one.<\/p>\n \u201cI think on hard courts, her movement is 20 to 25% better than on clay. I think she gets in and out of the corners better on the hard-court, and she uses the forehand slice.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I know a lot of coaches don\u2019t like the kids or people to do that, but listen, the game is very different than even six years ago, 10 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game is so much faster and quicker, the ball speed, movement\u2019s a premium, stroke mechanics is at an all-time high and you gotta have the forehand slice!<\/p>\n \u201cI counted one match against Sabalenka, she did it over 30 times when she was out wide to live another day. She resets the point, but what she does different, she\u2019s resetting the point low. She\u2019s hitting the ball back with underspin.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you keep it out of the strike zone\u2026 so here\u2019s Andreeva, that\u2019s a part of her toolbox, that\u2019s a part of her playbook, she chips the ball and keeps it in play where a lot of people reset it with topspin \u2014 and I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s wrong \u2014 but the people can step up and drive it from the shoulder. So when you keep it low, she lives another day.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s one piece that I love about her game. And she\u2019ll throw in the drop shot, a lob and she\u2019ll throw in the backhand slice and she\u2019s not afraid to volley and take the ball out of the air.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: The youngest players to win WTA titles in 2025: Teenagers 7-0 in finals as Andreeva and Mboko feature<\/a> The post Mirra Andreeva gets huge Grand Slam prediction from Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legendary tennis coach Rick Macci has identified a quality that sets Mirra Andreeva apart as he made a claim about how many Grand Slam titles the teenage star will win in her career. Andreeva, who celebrated her 18th birthday in April, has already reached lofty heights since turning pro in 2022 and has been at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Tour News<\/h2>\n
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