Mirra Andreeva reacted to the crowd booing her after her reign as Indian Wells Masters champions was ended in an an ill-tempered third round defeat to Katerina Siniakova
Teen tennis sensation Mirra Andreeva ended her defence of the Indian Wells Masters title by appearing to yell “f*** you all” towards the crowd.
The Russian, 18, was booed off the court after she fell to Katerina Siniakova in the third round in the California desert. That is when she let rip at the fans in the stands following an ill-tempered performance.
Andreeva, who once had a crush on Andy Murray, threw her racquet in fury after missing a volley to win the second set. She had actually hit back from being a break down to win the opener 6-4, but eventually went down to an eventful 4-6, 7-6, 6-3 defeat.
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To further compound Andreeva’s foul mood, Siniakova won the match courtesy of a slice of luck on match point, when he shot hit the net cord and the ball dribbled over to win the point.
Andreeva reacted by again lobbing her racquet before giving her opponent a very brief, no-look handshake at the net. As the emotional Czech celebrated her victory, Andreeva made her stroppy exit from the court.
The courtside MC asked the crowd to show their appreciation for the losing player. The crowd did this with a smattering of boos, prompting a furious response from Andreeva.
The world No.8 pointed around the stadium and appeared to say “f*** you all”. Andreeva could now fall down the rankings as she will lose 935 of her 4,001 ranking points – nearly 25 per cent of her total.
The precocious talent will be lucky to remain in the top ten in the world, and will drop out of it if one of Belinda Bencic, Karolina Muchova, Linda Noskova or Naomi Osaka can go far enough at Indian Wells to overtake her.
Andreeva at least admitted that she had not reacted appropriately while speaking in her post-match press conference.
She said: “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 really need to work on soon. I don’t know. Not in the future but whenever I get the chance.”
This is not the first time Andreeva has had an on-court outburst. She was docked a point at Wimbledon for throwing her racquet on the pristine All-England Club lawn, when aged just 16.
Last October she burst into tears and told a cameraman to stop filming during her Wuhan Open defeat to Laura Siegemund. Andreeva returned to court barely 90 minutes after her defeat to Siniakova as she teamed up with Victoria Mboko in the doubles.
This time the former Roland Garros semi-finalist immediately appeared in much better spirits, and was even seen laughing as she and Mboko booked their place in the quarter-finals in which they will face No.5 seeds Anna Dalinina and Aleksandra Krunic.