Mirra Andreeva continues dream run

DUBAI: For much of her two hours and 15-minutes on court in the Dubai Duty Free tennis semifinals, Mirra Andreeva clenched her fist and urged herself to keep fighting.
'Come oooonnnnn,' the 17-year-old shouted into the late-evening air each time she won a point in the third set where she staged yet another spectacular rally, battling back from 1-3, winning five games in a row against the sixth seed Elena Rybakina to make her biggest final yet.
The bubbly Russian, a semifinalist at Roland Garros last year, closed on her second match point to make the WTA 1000 title round with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory. Andreeva won just one point more than her 25-year-old opponent (96 to 95) in a clash of slim margins.
In the final on Saturday, Andreeva will face the winner of the second semifinal that pits the 14th seed Karolina Muchova against the unseeded Dane Clara Tauson.
"It was a bit hard after the second set, I felt like I was close, I was right there with her," Andreeva said of the semifinal. "I had a few flashbacks to our last match in 2023 (Beijing). I was like, no, this is not happening again. I tried to take my time, I tried to think. I kept believing in myself. I'm just going to keep put ting the ball in, run, fight..."
It was the 17-year-old Russian who started well, nailing the first break of serve in the fifth game of the match, but Rybakina struck back in the next game, before Andreeva sealed the decisive break.
In the second set Rybakina claimed a greater share of the points. And when the sixth seed broke in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead in the decider it looked like curtains for the teenager.