“As Rafa said, what happened in Madrid happened...”: Mirra Andreeva channels Nadal mindset ahead of Rome debut

Mirra Andreeva looks to recover after her defeat in the Madrid Open final a few days ago against Marta Kostyuk and prepares for her debut in Rome, where she is the 8th seed and aims to improve on her 2025 campaign, in which she reached the quarterfinals. This time the Russian awaits her debut in two days against the Croatian Antonia Ruzic.

It has been a successful and breakthrough year for the Russian teenager, who brings a 26-8 record on the season and 12-2 on clay – where she won the title in Linz, reached the semifinals in Stuttgart and the final in Madrid. She is the player with the most wins in the clay swing and in Rome she is one of the main title contenders.

Her run in Madrid left mixed feelings after a heavy defeat in the final. With two previous WTA 1000 titles, she arrived slightly as favourite against Kostyuk, but the Ukrainian star outplayed her in straight sets, showing conviction in key moments against an Andreeva who ended the day in tears during the trophy ceremony.

It had been a couple of positive weeks in Madrid, defeating players such as Leylah Fernandez and Hailey Baptiste on her way to the final. She also returned to doubles with Diana Shnaider again as her partner, reaching the final in their first tournament together since the WTA Finals last year, although Andreeva again ended in disappointment after being defeated in the final by Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend.

“Of course, it was very good two weeks in Madrid, singles and doubles,” said Andreeva upon her arrival in Rome. “I mean, two finals. I think a lot of positives to take from those two weeks.”

Andreeva mentioned in her press conference that she does not want to think too much about what happened in Madrid and hopes to take the next step in Rome instead. “Now Madrid is kind of in the past, so we have to forget about what happened there and try to put all of the focus that you have to try and perform well here in Rome.”

The 19-year-old player joked while recalling Rafael Nadal’s iconic press conference in Rome 2019. “What happened in Monte Carlo happened, what happened in Barcelona happened and what happened in Madrid happened, so here we are, we are in Rome,” said Nadal after a run of semifinal defeats earlier that clay season – although he eventually went on to win both Rome and Roland Garros that year.

“Well, as Rafa said, what happened in Madrid happened,” said Andreeva with a smile in her press conference. “So here we are in Rome. I saw that video this morning, so I’m trying to adopt that mindset to approach each new tournament after a result that wasn’t good. I mean, it wasn’t the result I wanted. I’m just going to try to keep that mindset.”

Andreeva hopes to adapt quickly to the conditions in Rome in order to maintain her strong clay-court results, where she has already defeated high-level opponents such as 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko and four-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek on her preferred surface.

“I understand that these were a very good couple of weeks on clay, three consecutive weeks I was playing a final, I won one tournament, I lost in the final,” Andreeva said. “Overall I would say it’s an amazing start to the clay season. Obviously now I think I’m not very happy with that because obviously every tournament I play I really want to go for it and I really want to win it.

"There are two sides of how I think about that," the world No. 7 added. "I try to put myself on the more positive side and really think that those were great weeks on clay. Try to keep going.”

Her first challenge in Rome will be against the Croatian Antonia Ruzic – who advanced after defeating Kamila Rakhimova in three sets in her debut. “I have never played against Ruzic, so I saw a couple of points of how she played in Australia,” said Andreeva about her next opponent. “I pretty much know how she plays. Obviously that’s going to be, as well, up to Conchita on what she tells me to do. We are going to come up with a game plan together. It usually takes around maybe I would say 15 minutes, not super long.”

“She always asks me if I know how my opponent plays. But then when I say if I know how the opponent plays, I just tell my point of view, then she either gives more advice or corrects me sometimes if I’m wrong. Then she shows me statistics. She has her notes as well that she writes to show, then we both discuss how to play.”