Andreeva not just a singles star

By Harvey Fialkov

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – The young Russian duo of Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider had to wait nearly six hours to finish off their first Miami Open presented by Itaú, but it was worth it.

The match began at 1 p.m. under dark clouds and after a quick start for a 3-0 lead for the Russian duo, the skies opened up and the quartet didn’t restart until 6:45 p.m. The Russians napped, ate, fooled around, separated, ate again and went on to defeat another unseeded pair, Cristina Bucsa of Spain and Miyu Kato of Japan, 6-3,6-7 (5),(10-2) for their second title together, but their first Masters 1000.

“I had pretty much a lot of pressure when we couldn’t close it in the second set, but then in the super-breaker we just played amazing,’’ said Andreeva, who will head home for a two-week rest before beginning her clay-court season in Stuttgart, Germany in mid-April.

“We were super-focused and we stayed together and we fought for every point and I think we had a lot of driving adrenaline, and both of us had a lot of energy and we just played the best tennis.”

The champions split $457,150 and earned 1000 ranking points to shoot up to No. 2 in the PIF Race to the WTA Finals. The runner-ups split $242,000 and amassed 650 ranking points.

Andreeva and Shnaider, 20, earned a Silver medal at the Paris Olympics last summer and then began the 2025 season with a title at Brisbane, followed by a semifinal run in the Australian Open. They are 13-3 since joining forces last year, and have committed to play doubles all year.

The bubbly teen wrote “MI-DI champs!”, a nickname they were given at the Olympics for the first two letters of their first names. She praised her left-handed partner for setting her up at net for easy volley winners.

“Every time I’m at the net, I’m like, ‘You guys don’t stand a chance because with her stroking.’ She could go down the line, she could go cross-court, she could go low, she could go short cross, you never know what she’s going to do,’’ Andreeva said.

Andreeva is the Russian prodigy who won back-to back Masters 1000 singles titles in Dubai and Indian Wells to climb up the ranks from 12 to No. 6 before losing in the round of 32 in singles to Amanda Anisimova.

While waiting for the all-day cloudburst to stop, the dynamic duo was seen in the bowels inside Hard Rock Stadium, giggling like school girls, juggling tennis balls and simulating models strutting down a runaway with coach Conchita Martinez chaperoning.

They finally returned to the courts at 6:45 with a 3-0 lead. They immediately were broken by Japan’s Kato, 30, and Busca, 27, from Spain. However, at 3-2, they broke back on Andreeva’s backhand volley putaway and weren’t threatened after that.

In the second set, Andreeva, who seems taller than her listed 5-foot-9, showed off her defensive skills and serving power, but Shnaider was broken when serving for the match at 6-5 to force a second-set tiebreaker.

With Andreeva serving at 5-4 in the breaker, Kato and Busca won the last three points with the Spaniard crushing a volley winner on set point to set up the super-tiebreaker.

Andreev and Shnaider were truly super in the breaker, rolling to a 10-2 victory, with the first match point coming off a Shnaider serve and an Andreeva smashing volley. The teen raised her arms and hugged her partner.

Kato and Busca have won five doubles titles each, but with different partners. Busca won a Bronze medal in Paris with partner Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain.

The unseeded duo knocked out the top-seeded tandem of American Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova of Czechia, the No. 1 team in the world, in the semis.