Girls in the near future – Sport – Kommersant

In Melbourne, at the Australian Open, for the first time in the history of this tournament, a purely Russian singles final among athletes under 18 was played. 15-year-old Alina Korneeva, having beaten her contemporary Mirra Andreeva in a marathon match in 3 hours and 18 minutes, became the first winner of the junior Grand Slam tournament from Russia since 2016.

The fact that a very strong generation of tennis players born in 2007 is growing up in Russia is not a secret for specialists. Two years ago, the Russian team of girls under 14 under the leadership of captain Alexander Krasnorutsky won both major team tournaments in their age category at once – the world championship in Prostejov, Czech Republic and the European Cup in San Remo, Italy. Under the first two numbers in that team, Alina Korneeva and Mirra Andreeva played, who, as Krasnorutsky told the Kommersant correspondent at the time, “are already able to compete with much older rivals.” So, on the one hand, the purely Russian final of the Australian Open does not seem to be a sensational event. On the other hand, there were no such finals at the junior Grand Slam tournaments since Wimbledon 2015, when Sofya Zhuk, who failed to play at a professional level, defeated the current 60th racket of the world Anna Blinkova.

Mirra Andreeva and Alina Korneeva, the daughter of the famous volleyball player, bronze medalist of the 2008 Olympics Alexander Korneev, who trains in Moscow at Spartak, are also already ranked by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). Albeit much lower – respectively, at 292nd and 533rd places. Moreover, both of them have titles won in adult tournaments of primary and secondary level, which are held under the auspices of the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

Korneeva won a $15,000 event in Casablanca last year, and Andreeva has already won four victories — two 15,000ers in Antalya, a 25,000 in Segovia, and a rather respectable November 60,000 in Meitar, Israel.

There, in the final, she left no chance to Rebecca Peterson, the most experienced first racket of Sweden, who until recently was in the top hundred and worked under the guidance of Thomas Hogstedt, the former coach of Maria Sharapova. For a tennis player of such a young age, such a result should be considered a real breakthrough. For example, on the account of 18-year-old Erika Andreeva, Mirra’s older sister, who two years ago reached the final of the junior Roland Garros, and in August made it to the main draw of the adult US Open and occupies 137th place in the world classification, there are no such victories yet. The most successful 15-year-old tennis player in the world at the moment, the Czech Brenda Frukhvirtova, who is already trying to play at the WTA level, did not win the 60-thousanders, she qualified for the adult Australian Open two weeks ago, and in the world ranking she is in 136th position.

In Melbourne, Korneeva and Andreeva also competed together in the junior doubles, where they reached the semi-finals, and single-handedly competed for the title. At the same time, Andreeva did not give up a single set on the way to the final, and Korneeva in the quarterfinals faced stubborn resistance from the strong Czech Tereza Valentova, whom she beat in two hours in three games. The decisive match, which took place on the main arena of the tournament, the court named after Rod Laver, turned out to be very stubborn and lasted much longer – 3 hours and 18 minutes. In a very long ten-minute tenth game of the third installment, Andreeva played two match points on someone else’s serve, spending too much energy on it. The last two games quickly fell to Korneeva, who showed a little more restraint and ended the meeting in her favor with a score of 6:7 (2:7), 6:4, 7:5.

This is the first triumph of the Russians at the junior Grand Slam tournaments since 2016, when the current world No. 44 Anastasia Potapova won Wimbledon. And on the courts of Melbourne Park, the representatives of Russia have not won even longer – since 2014. Then there was the first Elizaveta Kulichkova, whose name has not appeared in the WTA ranking for about five years.

Evgeny Fedyakov