Young Tennis Star Accused of 'Deliberate Mistakes': 'She Can't Handle the Pressure'

The young Russian, seeded eighth in Miami, suffered a defeat in the round of 16 against Canadian Victoria Mboko. While she remains in the women's doubles with Mboko, her singles loss was notable. Andreeva fought back after a frustrating first set, leveling the match, but then faltered. She lost the decisive third set 6-0 to her good friend and doubles partner, Mboko. Safina has her own thoughts on the matter.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but sometimes Mirra's mistakes seem emotional. I can't say she's doing anything wrong, but she's making mistakes… I have a feeling she's making mistakes on purpose. At least, that's how it looks from the outside. I could be wrong, but it feels like after every mistake, she wants to go back to her team and say: 'Look, see, I made a mistake!'", Safina stated on the Best Tennis Podcast, as quoted by Russian outlet Championat.

"Of course, I don't know what Mirra is going through right now. I can only guess, but she can't handle the pressure. We often talk about players' urge to quickly reach the first, second, or third spot in the world rankings, to win a Grand Slam... It's an enormous burden. Perhaps they can't cope with it. But that's part of the job. It's normal that when you have a certain ranking, sponsors, coaches, and your fans demand or expect results from you. If someone doesn't want to meet those expectations, they will never reach a high world ranking. They will end up somewhere around 60th or 70th place."