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By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday May 1, 2023

 
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The No.2 seed says that the pressure wasn't only on her side of the court when she faced 16-year-old Andreeva on Monday in Madrid.

Photo Source: TTV

Pressure? What pressure?

In Monday’s matchup between rising teen Mirra Andreeva – playing in just her second WTA level event – and No.2-seeded Aryna Sabalenka, the pressure was supposed to be on the shoulders of Aryna Sabalenka, one of the tour’s hottest players, who entered the match with a 25-4 record in her wake.

Tennis Express

Andreeva, on the other hand, was riding a wave of emotion. The recently turned 16-year-old had notched three Top 50 wins to become the youngest woman in history to reach the round of 16 at a WTA 1000 event. An unknown commodity, she was putting the tour’s top players on alert.

Not Sabalenka, however.

The World No.2 calmly dispatched the World No. 194, 6-3, 6-1 on Monday in Madrid, setting a quarterfinal clash with Egypt’s Mayar Sherif.

Andreeva, who had made giant waves while defeating Leylah Fernandez, Beatriz Haddad Maia and Magda Linette in her first three matches in the Spanish capital, had a break point to take a 3-1 lead in the first set, but was unable to convert.

From there the Belarusian would win 11 of the final 13 games to clinch her victory in 73 minutes.

“I don't believe that she had no pressure, and today I felt on the court that she actually had a little pressure,” Sabalenka later said. “There's always a pressure on the match court.


“If she wants to be a top player, there is something to lose. There is always pressure on both of us, and I think she's had to deal with pressure.”

Sabalenka broke for 3-2 in the opener and didn’t face a break point the rest of the way.

She finished the match with 28 winners against just 16 unforced errors, and credited her ability to adjust to the fast-playing, high-bouncing conditions at Madrid after the win.

“In this kind of conditions, you have to adjust and of course I adjust my strings here,” she said. “Otherwise my ball will fly like to the stands in the crowd, so I have to adjust it a little bit – I'm becoming the player who is adjusting to conditions, before I used to be like ‘Whatever, I don't need to adjust.’”


Sherif Continues Trailblazing Run

Mayar Sherif, the first WTA player from Egypt to hold a Top 100 and Top 50 ranking (she is currently 59) or lock down a WTA title, is now the first player to reach a WTA 1000 quarterfinal after defeating Elise Mertens, 6-4, 0-6, 6-4 on Monday, in two hours and 53 minutes.

It was a wild win that featured 29 break point opportunities, and 15 breaks of serve in total.

Sherif has posted a 33-7 record on clay across all levels since the start of 2023.

 

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