PARIS :Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva will hang on to the sweat-soaked wristband that Australia’s Daria Kasatkina jokingly threw towards her at the net as a souvenir of their entertaining French Open clash on Monday.
The prodigious 18-year-old underlined her credentials as a Roland Garros title contender by outwitting her frequent practice partner and 17th seed Kasatkina 6-3 7-5 to storm into the quarter-finals for a second straight year.
Last year’s semi-finalist approached the net to shake the hand of the Russian-born Kasatkina after the match and was met with a soggy wristband flying in her direction instead.
“She’s a great person and a great player. I had a feeling that after the match she’s going to do something like this, and I knew that if I would lose I would also do something funny,” sixth seed Andreeva told reporters.
“When she threw her wristband at me, it was funny. It was a nice gesture from her.
“After that, we exchanged kind words, and she told me congratulations. Of course, I said it was a good match. I kept the wristband so it’s going to be in my bag for now.”
Andreeva joked in her on-court interview that she practised with Kasatkina only because she “hated” her and later said that a changed mindset helped her avenge a three-set defeat by the 28-year-old in the Ningbo final last year.
“When I first played Dasha, it was much more difficult for me to stay focused and not to be nice on the court,” she said.
“Compared to the last match, today I knew that she’s going to want to beat me on the court. I don’t know what changed, but today was not that hard to change my mindset and step on court and be opponents.
“I don’t know how, but I managed to 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, and I was able to keep this focus throughout the whole match so I’m proud of myself.”
