French Open 2024: 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva makes it to first Grand Slam semi-final

Mirra Andreeva got the better of No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka and will play Jasmine Paolini next. Both Andreeva and Paolini have never before played in a Grand Slam semi-final

Mirra Andreeva will meet Jasmine Paolini in the semi-final

When Aryna Sabalenka and Mirra Andreeva took centre court for their quarter-final match in the French Open 2024, at Roland Garros, the former was, undoubtedly, the favourite to advance to the next round and set up an encounter with Jasmine Paolini.

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All of 17-years-old, Andreeva’s only on her second French Open ever and getting to a quarter-final a career best. Playing the world no. 2, she showed no signs of nerves and went to work from the word go, putting Sabalenka through her paces. The youngster took Sabalenka to a tie-breaker in the first set, then wrestled the second from her and took the match into a decider.

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Sabalenka was out of sorts throughout the match, even taking a medical time-out during the second set. A lot of her shot choices or the lack of it had commentators wondering if the medication she’d taken was making her groggy. It took Sabalenka a couple of games and the possibility of Andreeva breaking her serve to snap out of it and draw on all her energy reserves to avert this and then go on to break the youngster instead. That burst of energy did not last long, as she let Andreeva break her service on the back of multiple Sabalenka errors, levelling at 3 all in the decider.

At 4-5 and serving to stay in the match, Sabalenka attempted ambitious shots that put Andreeva within two points of a win. At 2 hours and 17 minutes Andreeva was given a match point when Sabalenka’s attempt at a drop shot landed on her side of the court. While she wasn’t allowed to convert that, only minutes later, the second one went through, taking Andreeva to her first French Open semi-final.

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Earlier in the day, Jasmine Paolini set up her first semi-final match at the French Open, when she defeated Elena Rybakina in a fiercely competed three-set contest that, for a moment, looked like it was swinging in favour of the latter. Paolini took the first set, but then lost the second and was down in the third, before turning the tide around. The final score, 6-2 4-6 6-4.

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