On Mirra Andreeva’s season debut, all eyes were on whether the 18-year-old would be able to reset. She answered the question in style, shaking off the loss of the first set to defeat local qualifier Olivia Gadecki 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the Brisbane International second round.

Andreeva broke into the Top 10 in style last year, winning back-to-back WTA 1000 titles in Dubai and Indian Wells. But she faded as the season went on, going 4-5 after Wimbledon and losing her last three matches of 2025.

After defeating Gadecki, Andreeva acknowledged that she had struggled — but also learned from her experiences.

“I did feel pressure from a lot of people, especially after I won the two tournaments,” she said. “I felt like people would expect me to win Miami, and then they would expect me to win Madrid and Rome. And I was, you know, that’s basically almost not possible.

“I did feel the pressure that people were expecting me to win basically every tournament that I would play, and that was not easy. But last year I learned a lot how to deal with the pressure, how to not pay attention to what people say, and how to talk about this. Because I was talking a lot about how I felt with my team and now I feel like I know more about this. I have learned a lot from the last year, and if that happens this year, I certainly know what to do with this.”

In that vein, the World No. 9 also has words of wisdom for another teenager who has been gaining attention in Brisbane. Australian 17-year-old Emerson Jones, the former junior No. 1, scored both a first-round upset of Tatjana Maria and a Vogue Australia feature this week. Against No. 10 seed Liudmila Samsonova, she raced out of the blocks with a barrage of breathtaking winners to lead 3-0 — but could not sustain that hot form. Once Wimbledon quarterfinalist Samsonova began to assert her own power on the match, she took control to win 12 of the last 14 games for a 6-4, 6-1 victory.

Andreeva is one of many who has been impressed by Jones, just one year her junior, this week.

“I think she’s very talented,” she said. “Because she’s very thin, she’s very small, but she hits pretty hard.”

But as a teen phenom who has had to learn to shake off pressure, Andreeva advises Jones to ignore the hype and do likewise.

“I just think that if I had a chance to tell her something, maybe I would have said not to focus on whatever people say,” she told press. “Because there’s going to be a lot of people that would say, ‘Oh, you’re going to be the next Sharapova or the next Ash Barty.’

“You just have to focus that you are who you are, and you have your own career and you have your own path. I’m Mirra Andreeva. She’s Emerson Jones. She’s not going to be the next Ash Barty, because Ash Barty stopped her career. She’s not playing anymore. She’s going to have her own career, and I think she should focus on making her own path in tennis.”

Andreeva’s victory also ended a particular negative streak for her. Recently, home players have been a particular thorn in her side. Between the 2024 US Open and the end of 2025, she lost six of her eight matches against opponents on their home soil. In 2025, she fell to Amanda Anisimova in Miami, Lois Boisson at Roland Garros, Taylor Townsend at the US Open and Zhu Lin in Ningbo. For a set against No. 204-ranked Gadecki, that pattern seemed to be repeating itself. From 3-1 down, the Australian won five of the next six games, punishing the Andreeva second serve repeatedly.

The turning point came at 1-1 in the second set, when Andreeva faced two points to go down a set and a break. She saved both with fine serves, then captured the Gadecki serve in the next game with her signature backhand down the line. From there, Andreeva took control, including a run of 13 consecutive points to close out the second set and open the third.

Like Andreeva, No. 2 seed Anisimova faces the challenge in 2026 of backing up a breakthrough year. And like Andreeva, she got off to a solid start against local opposition, needing just 63 minutes to dismiss wild card Kimberly Birrell 6-1, 6-3.

Unlike Andreeva, Anisimova finished 2025 hot, backing up her pair of Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open with her second WTA 1000 title in Beijing. The key question for the American would be whether she could keep her momentum going — and that was certainly the case against Birrell.

A dominant performance saw World No. 3 Anisimova slam 18 winners to her opponent’s four. She ran off 11 consecutive points to close out the first set and start the second; a brief blip up 3-2 in the second set, when she double faulted to drop serve for the only time, was quickly shaken off. Anisimova’s backhand on the run was arguably her most improved shot of 2025, and it was appropriate that she sealed match point with a scorching winner off that wing.

Andreeva and Anisimova are both just one match away from meeting in the quarterfinals this week, though both will have to navigate tough third-round opponents first. Anisimova will face No. 16 seed Marta Kostyuk, who defeated lucky loser Yulia Putintseva 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-0; she has defeated the Ukrainian just once in three meetings, and that was a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 battle in last year’s Doha quarterfinals.

For the third year in a row, Andreeva will face Linda Noskova in Brisbane after the Czech No. 9 seed battled past Magdalena Frech 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4 in 2 hours and 31 minutes. In her on-court interview, Noskova referred to struggling with a leg injury during the match.

“Brisbane is not Brisbane if I don’t play Linda, starting from the first year I came here,” Andreeva said. They have split their two previous meetings at the tournament, with Noskova winning 7-5, 6-3 in the 2024 quarterfinals and Andreeva gaining a 6-3, 6-0 revenge in the 2025 third round. Andreeva leads their overall head-to-head 3-2.