Esteemed tennis coach Rick Macci has lauded the talent of Mirra Andreeva and backed the teenage star to win the 2025 US Open title.<\/p>\n
Andreeva<\/a>, who has been at a career-high ranking of world No 5 since July, is enjoying an excellent 2025 season.<\/p>\n In February and March, Andreeva won consecutive hard-court WTA 1000 events in Dubai and Indian Wells \u2014 her biggest titles to date.<\/p>\n The 18-year-old recorded five of her six top 10 wins this year during these title runs, including victories over Iga Swiatek<\/a> (twice) and Aryna Sabalenka<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Russian also made successive quarter-finals at the clay-court 1000 tournaments in Madrid and Rome before making the last eight at both the French Open and Wimbledon. Andreeva achieved her best Grand Slam result to date at the 2024 French Open, where she made the semi-finals.<\/p>\n Macci<\/a> knows what a future champion looks like, having coached five players who went on to become world No 1: Jennifer Capriati, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova.<\/p>\n The seven-time USPTA national coach of the year spoke exclusively to Tennis365 about Andreeva ahead of the US Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI called this a couple of years ago, I knew where this was going. She (Andreeva) is gonna be number one, she\u2019s my pick to win the US Open,\u201d Macci said.<\/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 US Open 2025 women\u2019s draw: Who will Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Emma Raducanu play?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Coco Gauff\u2019s former coach breaks his silence on split ahead of US Open<\/strong><\/a><\/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.<\/p>\n \u201cSo she checks all the boxes in my book. Number one, for sure, is around the corner and she\u2019s my pick to win the US Open.\u201d<\/p>\n Andreeva has not played a singles match since sustaining a left ankle injury in her 6-7(5), 4-6 loss to McCartney Kessler in the third round of the Canadian Open in Montreal on July 31. The issue forced her to pull out of the WTA 1000 tournament in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n The Russian returned to action for the US Open mixed doubles event, where she and partner defeated the Serbian duo of Novak Djokovic and Olga Danilovic before suffering a 1-4, 1-4 quarter-final loss to Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper.<\/p>\n Andreeva will face world No 71 Alycia Parks in the opening round of the US Open.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: The 5 favourites to win the 2025 US Open women\u2019s singles title \u2013 ranked!<\/a> The post Mirra Andreeva backed in bold US Open prediction over Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek & Coco Gauff<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Esteemed tennis coach Rick Macci has lauded the talent of Mirra Andreeva and backed the teenage star to win the 2025 US Open title. Andreeva, who has been at a career-high ranking of world No 5 since July, is enjoying an excellent 2025 season. In February and March, Andreeva won consecutive hard-court WTA 1000 events […]<\/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-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","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=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}US Open News<\/h2>\n
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