Mirra Andreeva beats 6-1, 6-3 as Conchita Martinez looms
Mirra Andreeva beat Marta Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 at the French Open semi-finals and reached her first Grand Slam final. The win made the Russian the fourth-youngest French Open finalist in the past 30 years, behind only Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters and Coco Gauff.
Andreeva played with control from the start and finished the match without letting Kostyuk extend the set into a longer fight. That mattered in a semi-final that carried more than tennis pressure, with Russia’s war in Ukraine in focus throughout the tournament.
Marta Kostyuk and the backdrop
Kostyuk arrived with a run that included a quarter-final win over Elina Svitolina, then spoke forcefully before the semi-final about the conflict in Ukraine. “I wish there was some more clear stance on what’s going on, especially when your country is killing other people,” she said, and added, “I don’t know how you can sleep at night peacefully when you know that this is going on, and you have nothing to say about it.”
Her tournament had started 11 days earlier, when she woke up to news that a Russian missile had landed about 100m from her family home in Ukraine. Her mother, sister and great aunt were staying there at the time. Kostyuk later said, “I will never believe anyone who is at the world stage of this sport saying they have zero influence or anything, because I experienced this myself.”
Andreeva’s first Grand Slam final
The match was the second significant meeting between Andreeva and Kostyuk in the clay court season. Kostyuk had beaten her in the Madrid Open final earlier in the spring, but this one ended with Andreeva moving on after a far cleaner scoreline.
Before the first point, the two players posed separately for photos with the child mascots for the coin toss. Afterward, Kostyuk did not shake Andreeva’s hand, and Andreeva slowed her walk toward the net so the pair did not arrive there at the same time.
Andreeva said, “I have been trying to work on me being more calm, more positive,” and, “I’m very focused, and I felt like recently I have been trying to do a lot of different stuff. Maybe now I have found what’s been working very well for me.” For Kostyuk, the loss ended a run that had already made her one of the players at the center of the tournament’s most charged backdrop.
