Mirra Andreeva speaks out after telling Indian Wells crowd ‘f*** you all’ in meltdown | Tennis | Sport

Furious defending champion Mirra Andreeva was knocked out of Indian Wells – and screamed at the crowd “f*** you all, f*** you all” as some spectators booed her off for her unsavoury behaviour on the court. The teenager’s title defence ended in a 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 loss to Katerina Siniakova in a fiery third-round match in California. Eighth seed Andreeva started the tournament with a 6-0, 6-0 victory but in the next round against the Czech, found herself repeatedly frustrated and took her anger out on herself and her racket throughout.

Andreeva threw her racket after the second set tiebreaker and then received a code violation for repeatedly smashing it by her bench. That came after the two players had complained about each other’s conduct during the second set. The teenager vented her frustrations by hitting her own thigh with both her racket and her fist on different occasions. She also slung her racket after Siniakova won the match on a shot that hit the net cord and dropped the right side of the net for the world No.44. After that, Andreeva threw a tantrum, which included her X-rated shouts at the crowd as she also made gestures at them while walking off.

Asked if she was swearing at the crowd or her team, Andreeva replied: “Well, of course I can say that there were a lot of emotions that I was going through after the loss. But of course 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. Yeah, I hope that I can work on it and I get better in that, as well.

“It was to myself, to everyone, basically. After the loss, I just get very angry, so I say those things sometimes to myself. I mean, first to myself, of course, but then, yeah, it was just anger coming out, just a lot of emotions. Not really towards anyone.”

World No. 8 Andreeva says she plans to learn from the iconic 23-time singles Grand Slam champion, Serena Williams, to better handle setbacks. She said: “I was actually thinking about it recently. I think the one person that was handling losses very well was Serena Williams, like I’ve never heard or seen her upset.

“Even I remember, she was losing finals on the Slams, and she would always smile and be happy for her opponent that she won the match and she got the trophy. So maybe it’s something that I can also try to learn, and we’ll see how that’s gonna go. Yeah, we’ll see.”

Despite her singles elimination, the 18-year-old remains in the doubles draw paired with Canadian Victoria Mboko. The Russian was required to return to court quickly after as the duo faced Jelena Ostapenko and Hailey Baptiste for a place in the quarter-finals.

Andreeva and Mboko came through 7-6, 6-3, 11-9. Asked how she got back into the right headspace, the Russian added: “Yeah, I was just stuck in the locker room, scrolling Reels in Instagram, trying to get my mind off of it.

“Other than that, I was just trying to get ready for doubles, because obviously I lost my singles match. It’s not like I’m going to go on court and tank my doubles because I don’t feel like playing. I just had to calm down, get ready for doubles, warm up.

“Then we went on court with Vicky. I just had a lot of fun. It’s just nice that we also won the match. It was a real battle out there today, as well. She helped me to feel better a little bit, to at least win the doubles match today. Yeah, with her, it was just easy to kind of forget a little bit about the singles match on the court.”

Andreeva and Mboko face fifth seeds Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunic in the doubles quarter-finals on Wednesday.