French Open recap: Mirra Andreeva, Daria Kasatkina and tennis friendships

New York Times

2 days ago

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Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On day nine, two good friends showed off the two sides of knowing each other's games, a day of freshness arrived for two quarterfinalists and a window of opportunity opened for Jannik Sinner's next opponent.
Unless you are Zheng Qinwen, who has strategically decided that she cannot be friends with anyone on the WTA Tour because it would make competing with them too difficult, playing a big match against a buddy eventually happens.
On Monday it was Mirra Andreeva and Daria Kasatkina's turn. For the 18-year-old Andreeva, Kasatkina, with a decade more of wear on her tires, has become a significant role model. They are both Russian by birth and irreverent souls by spirit. Andreeva often appears on Kasatkina's vlog documenting her escapades on the tour.
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Last fall Kasatkina, consoled Andreeva after beating her in the Ningbo final. No more consoling is necessary. Andreeva, now the world No. 6, is 11 spots ahead of Kasatkina. When she beat her in the round of 16 Monday, Kasatkina threw her wristband at the teenager as they approached the net after Andreeva's straight-sets win.
Andreeva loved it. Playing against a friend is way easier than it once was.
'I don't know what changed, but today was not that hard to, you know, kind of change my mindset and step on court and kind of be opponents,' she said.
'I managed to kind of tell myself that I'm playing against the ball, not against the opponent. I just tried to focus on the ball that I have to hit.'
For, Kasatkina, a regular practice partner for Andreeva, an adjustment might be in order, especially in terms of showing Andreeva the ropes.
'If I'm responsible for her matureness, then I have to now shut up,' she said.
Matt Futterman
Given the problems Dutch player Tallon Griekspoor has given world No. 3 Alexander Zverev previously, Novak Djokovic would have been forgiven for hoping for more of the same on Monday. When Zverev and Griekspoor met at Roland Garros last year, the match went all the way to a fith-set tiebreak. The duo also went the distance at Indian Wells, Calif. earlier this year, this time in three sets.
Going into Monday's round of 16 at the French Open, Djokovic knew that if he could get past Cameron Norrie, he'd be playing the winner of the latest instalment of Griekspoor vs. Zverev. Another battle royale would suit him just fine.
Another seesaw battle looked possible early on, when Griekspoor broke early for 3-0. But the Dutchman had suffered an abdominal injury in practice earlier that day, and after 13 games, he had to retire when trailing 6-4, 3-0. A nice bonus for Zverev, who will want all the rest he can get before the big tests ahead.
Zverev said after beating Griekspoor that he would definitely be watching Djokovic's match against Norrie, and he too would have been hoping for a tiring, drawn-out affair. Given Norrie's ability to run all day and turn matches into wars of attrition, he might have held out some hope.
He ended up disappointed, as Djokovic eased to a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 win in two hours and 14 minutes.
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Djokovic and Zverev should both be well rested then for Wednesday's meeting, which should make for a competitive, very physical match. When they met at the Australian Open in January, the first set alone lasted 81 minutes, before Djokovic retired with the hamstring injury he'd picked up in the previous round against Carlos Alcaraz.
Zverev knows that he'll be facing a far less physically compromised Djokovic this time around.
Charlie Eccleshare
Men's world No. 1 Jannik Sinner has lost just 11 games in his past two matches, and he was almost as dominant in his 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 win over Andrey Rublev Monday as he had been in the previous round against Jiří Lehečka.
Rublev, the No. 17 seed, and Lehečka, the world No. 34, are by no means weak opposition, but they are both pretty one-dimensional. Rublev and Lehečka play in much the same style as Sinner, and he just does just about everything better than they do. Both tried to outhit the Italian; both were left shaking their heads at the futility of their approach.
There isn't exactly a winning strategy for beating Sinner right now, apart from being Carlos Alcaraz, but the Italian's next opponent, Alexander Bublik, has some of the tools that make Alcaraz such a difficult opponent. What discomfits Sinner is changes in rhythm: being asked to hit balls that are coming with different heights, speeds, and spins is one of the only tennis questions that he is yet to fully answer, especially on clay.
Bublik, a mercurial talent from Kazakhstan, is capable of asking that question. He has a massive serve and power off the ground, but he's also one of the trickiest, most unpredictable players on the tour. He fried No. 5 seed Jack Draper's brain in a four-set win Monday and will ask Sinner different questions than the minimal ones Rublev and Lehecka have posed over the last few days.
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It's hard to make a case for Bublik ultimately winning the match, but it has better evidence than just about everybody else in the ATP top 30 can muster.
Charlie Eccleshare
There are plenty of layers to the upcoming quarterfinal matchup between Coco Gauff and Madison Keys.
It's a matchup of styles, a matchup between the two most recent Grand Slam champions from the U.S.. It's also a matchup between two women who have lived the hype of being the next big thing.
Keys has had the benefit of watching Gauff live that in real time. She's known Gauff since she was a pre-teen and has watched her evolve from a hot prospect into a seasoned pro, the same thing that she had to do roughly a decade before.
'I'm always really impressed with the fact that she handles it so well, because she's had even more success and more media attention than I had, and I know that it was definitely really hard for me,' Keys said Monday after beating another hot young American prospect, Hailey Baptiste, in straight sets.
'I feel like you watch her, and she just takes it all in stride and continues to just be 100 percent her, and I'm always just really impressed by it.'
Matt Futterman
Tell us what you noticed on the eighth day…
(Top photo of Daria Kasatkina and Mirra Andreeva: Robert Prange / Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)