Rising star: Bianca Andreescu, 19, has won titles in Indian Wells and Toronto
I
f there is one word that sums
up Bianca Andreescu it is
“sassy”. She may be only 19 –
and playing in the main draw
of the US Open for the first
time – but Andreescu is
already strolling around Flushing
Meadows with her shoulders
pulled back and her smile on
full beam.
Self-belief is contagious.
Andreescu looks utterly confident
that she can win the US Open, and
now everyone else is beginning to
think so, too. Including ESPN
commentator John McEnroe, who
said last week: “She’s one of the
best young competitors I’ve seen
in 10 years.”
If you are thinking “Bianca
who?” you are not alone. This
young woman has arrived in a
hurry – a tennis version of Mary
Poppins descending from the sky.
When the 2019 season started,
Andreescu had played only six
tour-level matches, mostly via wild
cards. Since then, her win-loss
record is 25-4, including two huge
titles in Indian Wells and at her
home tournament in Toronto
(combined prize money just over
£1.5 million). Better still, she has
faced seven top-10 players and
beaten the lot. She is now ranked
No 15 in the world.
“When I play these players my
best tennis comes out,” Andreescu
told The Daily Telegraph, as we sat
at a picnic table outside Arthur
Ashe Stadium. “Because
I have no choice, right?”
Does she not feel nerves? “Well,
I did. More in Auckland, though.
[Her first tournament of the
season, where she took out Venus
Williams and Caroline Wozniacki
on the way to the final.] That was
the first time I had played against
these top players. But then again
the experience is catching up to me
at this point, so I am feeling way
more comfortable playing on these
big stages.”
Comfortable barely covers it.
Andreescu exudes self-possession.
If Naomi Osaka gives off the vibe of
a geeky genius outsider in a
high-school movie, Andreescu
would be one of the in-crowd.
Maybe the queen bee, admired and
feared in equal measure.
The tour has been dominated by
introverts of late, with the first
three majors of the year going to
Osaka, Ashleigh Barty and Simona
Halep. So Andreescu makes for a
fun contrast, even if not all her
fellow professionals are convinced.
There was a revealing moment
in the Toronto final a fortnight ago,
when Serena Williams was forced
to quit with a back injury.
Andreescu went to her distraught
opponent, as she wept on her chair,
and offered words of comfort as ifthe two women were peers. “I’ve
been through so many injuries
already,” she said. “This sucks.”
Williams approved, complimenting
Andreescu for her “old soul”, but
others might have thought: “Who
do you think you are?”
That was certainly the reaction
of last year’s Wimbledon champion
Angelique Kerber after a three-set
loss in Miami in March. Normally
so phlegmatic, Kerber was irritated
enough by Andreescu’s medical
timeout in the first set that she
groused “biggest drama queen
ever” as the two shook hands.
When I raised the drama-queen
incident, Andreescu laughed
loudly. “That’s old news! I don’tknow why she called me that, but
I won that match, so whatever.”
How does she approach locker-
room politics? Is she a gregarious
type like Wozniacki or more of a
loner like Maria Sharapova? “I’d
say in the middle. Yeah, I want to
be social, but at the same time, love
means nothing in this sport.”
She threw back her head and
laughed again at her joke.
Born in Mississauga, 20 minutes
from Toronto, Andreescu returned
to her parents’ native Romania at
the age of seven, where she started
playing tennis with her father
Nicu. “I was 10 when I first beat
him,” she recalled. “We were both
very competitive and he had to do
sprints on the court as a forfeit.”
Soon after that, the family
returned to Canada. Andreescu
was spotted by the governing
body, but declined the offer of a
full-time place at the nationaltraining centre in Montreal.
“Nothing compares to home so
I tried my best to just have that
environment as much as I could,”
said Andreescu, who seems to have
maintained a more normal teenage
existence than many of her peers.
“I am a pretty outgoing person.
I know I am an only child, some
people think that only children are
weird. But I had really good friends
I saw every time I was back home.”
What did they think when they
saw you beating grand-slam
champions?
“They’re always saying that they
expect it. I also graduated high
school. It’s definitely not easy [to
combine pro tennis with studying].
But I believe knowledge is power.”
Andreescu peppers her
conversation with these little
catchphrases. Ask her about New
York, for instance, and she will tell
you that “it’s literally the city that
never sleeps”. She comes across as
a classic wide-eyed teen – but one
who happens to be equipped with
every shot in the tennis handbook.
Her forehand could fell a tree.
She can hit it in so many different
ways – flat, loopy, inside out – that
pundit Brad Gilbert is already
calling it the best on the tour. But
Andreescu does not batter her
opponents to bits as much as tease
them with a bewildering array of
slices, drop shots and lobs.
Her eureka moment, she says,
came when she asked fellow
Romanian speaker Halep for
advice during the 2016 Rogers Cup
in Montreal. “We were doing a kids
day thing and I went up to her. She
said I should stop playing juniors
and start playing pro events. That’s
what I started doing.”
Had Halep seen you play,
I asked, or do you think it was
general advice? Andreescu paused,
as if she had not considered this
question before. “That I don’t
know. I wasn’t really someone back
in 2016.” But you are someone
now? She smiled. “Yes, I think so.”REXEXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Bianca Andreescu tells
Simon Briggs she turns
on her best tennis when
facing the top players
Tour’s new queen bee is
the picture of self-belief
‘Experience is
catching up to me,
so I am feeling way
more comfortable
on the big stages’
By Simon Briggs
Andy Murray has his first win as a
singles player with a metal hip, but
one suspects that he will not
remember the day as a major
milestone in his comeback. The
peculiarities of tennis’s ecosystem
threw up a complete mismatch
yesterday in Majorca, against a
17-year-old with zero experience of
top-level singles tennis.
Admittedly, the thinking behind
Murray’s drop down to Challenger
level was to give himself a chance to
build confidence against opponents
outside the top 100. But he proba-
bly did not expect to face a player –
Imran Sibille – who stands at equal
2,792nd in the International Tennis
Federation’s rankings.
Sibille was only here because not
enough players had signed up for
the Rafa Nadal Open. As a result,
the usual pre-tournament qualify-
ing event had to be scratched, and
trainees at the Rafa Nadal Academy- which is hosting the event – were
drafted in. Unsurprisingly, he was
hopelessly uncompetitive in a 6-0,
6-1 defeat that lasted 42 minutes.
Some coaches were predicting in
advance that Murray might deliver
a golden set – which means win-
ning all 24 points. They were not far
off, as he dropped only three points
in the first set. By the end of the
second, Murray started rolling the
ball back in at the same gentle pace
that Sibille was generating on his
own groundstrokes. He led by 5-0,
before charitably donating a game
to avoid the dreaded double-bagel.
Today’s match will be a different
type of challenge, against third
seed Norbert Gombos, the world
No 115 from Slovakia. “He made the
quarter-finals of the ATP event in
Washington a couple of weeks ago,”
Murray said afterwards, “so it will
be a good test for me.”
Murray breezes past novice
The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 27 August 2019 *** 15
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