THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London — The crowning moment of Mirra Andreeva’s career came less than a month ago, when she fulfilled what had long been fated for her and won her first Grand Slam tournament.
On Wednesday, she joined another illustrious club. The No. 5 seed became yet another French Open champion to come up short at the following Wimbledon when the 19-year-old Russian lost 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 in a second-round match against 2024 Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejčíková on Centre Court, becoming the first of the top-five-seeded women’s players to fall out of the draw.
Andreeva cut herself little slack after a two-hour-and-46-minute match, despite the fact that she didn’t play badly, ran into a two-time Grand Slam champion in the second round (Krejčíková also won the French Open in 2021) and had history stacked against her.
Andreeva is the third consecutive French Open champion to fall before the third round at Wimbledon, after Iga Świątek in 2024 and Coco Gauff in 2025. No woman has won the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back since Serena Williams in 2015, and only seven women have done it at all in the Open Era.
But immediately after the match, all Andreeva saw was missed chances.
“She’s a tricky opponent, especially to play against her on grass. She changes the rhythm a lot. The slices and dropshots, here they stay low, they don’t bounce. I’ve had some trouble with that, as well,” Andreeva said, after taking a moment to gather herself and her tears during her news conference.
“A lot of mistakes today also. Yeah, she played well, but I felt like I could have also played better. That’s it.”
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Krejčíková was a sleeper lurking in the draw. Her angular game and experience make her a threat on Wimbledon’s lawns, and she arrived at the year’s third Grand Slam with a few good wins under her belt on grass. She made it to the final of the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships in the Netherlands, a WTA 250-level tournament, before she pulled out because of illness ahead of facing American Robin Montgomery.
On Wednesday, she put her serve to work — she had nine aces — got Andreeva on the move from the first ball of every point, and kept her guessing from there.
The Russian is one of the more athletic players on tour, but Krejčíková paired her well-placed serve with her eclectic toolkit and pulled Andreeva around the court for every bit of the match, prompting poor strategic decisions and enough errors in big moments to gain an advantage. It helped that Andreeva’s serve wasn’t as lethal as it usually is.
Still, there were hints of some growth for the teenager, who earlier this season spent plenty of matches self-immolating when her emotions got the best of her. When Krejčíková broke to take a 4-2 lead in the second set, Andreeva showed no signs of strain, aside from the ragged breathing she used to recover between exhausting points.
She stood tough mentally. Andreeva played excellent defense to outlast Krejčíková in the ninth game, saving six match points, to break back and earn a chance to even the match on her powerful serve.
“Obviously Mirra is a big, big fighter. Even though I was up 5-2, then 5-3, I was 40-Love, I knew that she’s going to be putting the balls back in, and she’s gonna let me work for it,” Krejčíková said in a news conference.
“So I knew that I have to win and make, you know, the very last point.”
She swiped a forehand down the line at deuce to force an error on a lob from Andreeva, and earned her seventh match point of the evening. Finally, Andreeva sent an awkward forehand long and packed her bags, throwing her racket to the side of the court.
Krejčíková faces her countrywoman Nikola Bartůňková in the third round, which could lead to an all-Czech fourth round as well should No. 10 seed Karolína Muchová advance past the Thai qualifier Mananchaya Sawangkaew.
She sits in top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka’s quarter of the draw, but said after her match Wednesday that she isn’t stressing. Rather, she is enjoying every moment she gets to spend on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. For the former champion, it’s comfortable territory.