Indian Wells Open: Mirra Andreeva makes ‘not really proud’ admission after appearing to swear at spectators
Defending champion Mirra Andreeva made a fiery exit from the Indian Wells Open as she shouted at fans and stormed off the court following her defeat to Katerina Siniakova.
The teenager made a good start to the match as she won the opening set, but then lost her way after losing the second-set tiebreaker as world No 44 Siniakova won the last four games of the match to secure a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 victory.
Andreeva cut a frustrating figure throughout the contest as she smashed her racket – and it was no surprise as she made 75 unforced errors with 37 winners and converted only seven of her 26 break points.
Her frustration boiled over at the end of the match as she threw her racket to the ground while walking to the net to shake hands with Siniakova before shouting in the direction of the crowd.
But perhaps her biggest meltdown came as she made her exit from Court 1 with sections of the crowd booing as she turned around and appeared to shout “F*** you all”.
During the post-match press conference, she was asked about the incident and replied: “Of course I can say that there were a lot of emotions that I was going through after the loss.
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“But of course I’m not really proud of how I managed it. I’m not really proud of how I handled it in the end.
“Those are the things that I really need to work on soon. I don’t know. Not in the future but whenever I get the chance.
“I hope that I can work on it and I get better in that, as well.”
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Asked if she was shouting to the crowd, she said: “It was to myself, to everyone, basically. I mean, after the loss, I just get very angry, so I say those things sometimes to myself.
“I mean, first to myself, of course, but then, yeah, it was just anger coming out, just a lot of emotions. Not really towards anyone.”
The 18-year-old, who peaked at No 5 in the WTA Rankings last year, started the WTA 1000 tournament at No 8, but she has slipped to No 10 following her exit while there is a chance she could drop even lower.
Andreeva, though, managed to calm down after the match and she featured in the women’s doubles alongside Victoria Mboko and they went on to beat Hailey Baptiste and Jelena Ostapenko.
“I was just stuck in the locker room, scrolling Reels on Instagram, trying to get my mind off of it,” the Russian explained.
“Other than that, I was just, yeah, trying to get ready for doubles, because obviously, I mean, I lost my singles match. It’s not like I’m going to go on court and tank my doubles because I don’t feel like playing.
“I just had to calm down, get ready for doubles, warm up. Then we went on court with Vicky. I just had a lot of fun. It’s just nice that we also won the match. It was a real battle out there today, as well. She helped me to feel better a little bit, to at least win the doubles match today.
“With her, it was just easy to kind of forget a little bit about the singles match on the court.”
