Mirra Andreeva took her first career's WTA 1000 title, winning the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, after defeating Clara Tauson by 7-6(1) 6-1 in Saturday's final. Andreeva, who is yet to celebrate her 18th birthday, broke a few age records with this achievement, being the youngest ever champion of WTA 1000 grade tournament, same as the youngest finalist of event at that level. This victory has also lift up the youngster to become the new top 10 player since next Monday.
Road to the final
The Middle East Swing came up to an end, bringing up ton of surprises during two weeks in Doha and Dubai. This included multiple shocking upsets and early exits of top seeds, and both the events had a line-up of the final, which was barely to expect by anyone before the start of each one. Last week, both the finalists were unseeded, this time the 12th seed Andreeva met the unseeded Tauson in title match, but their deep run was surely far from a fluke. Both were showing the promising form earlier in the first weeks of the season. Andreeva had to work hard to show up in the final, as her draw was far from a cakewalk. Defeating Iga Swiatek in quarterfinals with straight sets win, and Elena Rybakina in the semis after high quality three-setter, was the perfomance showing that the young rising star is ready to join the conversation between the world's top players in the biggest event right now. The Dane had also some top names on the road to the final, especially including Aryna Sabalenka in third round, where Tauson made a surprising, but fully deserved upset. She has played many long and tight sets throughout whole the week, but found the resillience needed to make the career's biggest success so far.
Pressure resistance was the key in final
The final was very competitive one till the tiebreak of first set. Opening games brought a few breaks on both sides, with quite erratic play and visible pressure with the stake standing on court this afternoon. Andreeva took the front foot since the decisive game of first set, winning the tiebreak by 7-1. This was just a start of dominant performance of the Russian, who won 5 games in a row since the third game of second set, and crossed the finish line as a proved Dubai's champion. Despite the one-sided score, Tauson was the one who had her chances, pushing much more pressure on her opponent in the opening set. This has resulted with 28 pressure points generated by Tauson in compare to just 20 by Andreeva, which is quite surprising, knowing that second set was a one-way traffic. Resisting the pressure on own serve was the key though, as Andreeva won the impressive 20/28 crucial points on her serve, and more than half (11/20) on return. That was the key to win this match and whole the tournament.
Ranking movements
The 17 years-old winner rises up to become the 9th player in WTA rankings after her flawless run in Dubai. Tauson advances up to 23th, which is also her best career's rank so far. Last year's champion Jasmine Paolini drops down just two places to 6th despite losing the majority of 1000 points earned last year. This lifts up Madison Keys to her career's highest 5th, despite the Australian Open champion has not played in Middle East due to thigh injury. The 2024 runner-up from Dubai suffers more with her underperforming this year. Anna Kalinskaya lost 15 places and slided down to 34th, which can be not enough to be seeded in the upcoming events in Indian Wells and Miami.
