{"id":599514,"date":"2026-04-12T17:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599514\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:10:09","slug":"andreeva-wins-linz-thanks-herself-again-tennis-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599514\/","title":{"rendered":"Andreeva Wins Linz, Thanks Herself Again \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Down 6-1 against an opponent firing on all cylinders, Mirra Andreeva had two choices: check out or dig in.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old chose the latter\u2014and delivered. On Sunday, she stormed back to claim her fifth career WTA singles title on the red clay in Linz, improving to 5-1 in finals with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Anastasia Potapova.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"610\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Pro-Player-Gear-610X150-03.jpg\" alt=\"tennis express pro player gear\" class=\"wp-image-54451\"  data-\/>tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n<p>After a one-sided opening set, Andreeva settled in and began to make Potapova work for every point. She returned with verve and broke serve in three consecutive return games late in the match to seal her second title of the season, adding to her triumph in Adelaide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was not easy, but we made it through,\u201d Andreeva said, before slipping into her now-familiar post-title persona:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to thank myself\u2014for fighting until the end, for trying to find solutions, for never stopping and believing until the end that maybe, somehow, I could turn it around. I think it paid off today,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n<p>The loss did little to dampen the spirits of Potapova, who was contesting her first final in over a year. Ranked No. 97 at the start of the week, the former World No. 21 is projected to rise to No. 54 in the rankings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, I want to say good job to Mirra,\u201d Potapova said. \u201cYou are an unbelievable player. You\u2019re so young and have so many years ahead of you. I hope you achieve all your dreams, because you really deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2023 Linz champion (when the event was still played on hard courts) Potapova, who switched nationalities from Russia to Austria last December, became the first Austrian to reach the final since the tournament\u2019s debut on the WTA calendar in 1991.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me to stand here and hold this unbelievable trophy now\u2014I really want to say thanks, because you helped me to be here and to become the best version of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andreeva struck 32 winners to 35 unforced errors, while Potapova hit 30 winners against 42 unforced errors. Andreeva won 10 of 11 points at net and converted five of 12 break points. Potapova was clinical on her chances, converting all five break points she earned, but ultimately lost four of the final five games.<\/p>\n<p>Andreeva improves to a perfect 9-0 this season against players ranked outside the Top 50, and becomes the first Top 10 player to win the Linz title since Dominika Cibulkova in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Down 6-1 against an opponent firing on all cylinders, Mirra Andreeva had two choices: check out or dig&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-599514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}