Mirra Andreeva responds when asked what her best surface is after winning Indian Wells

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Mirra Andreeva has continued her rapid rise on the WTA Tour, with the teenager having just won the Indian Wells title.

Andreeva has been compared to Carlos Alcaraz, with the former now rising to a career-high ranking of sixth after winning Indian Wells.

Now a three-time WTA Tour champion, Andreeva came from behind to beat top seed and world number one Aryna Sabalenka to lift the trophy.

Andreeva thanked herself after beating Sabalenka in the final, where the ninth seed triumphed 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.

The 17-year-old has now won back-to-back WTA 1000 titles, having also won the Dubai Tennis Championships last month.

Mirra Andreeva has no favourite surface after Indian Wells title

Like Indian Wells, that success arrived on hard courts, with the Russian’s 2024 Iasi title having come on clay.

Asked in her winning press conference which of the two she considers her best surface, she replied: “I can say that I have no idea what my favourite surface is.

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“I like to play on clay, I like to play on hard, I like to play on grass. So I can say that all three of them are my favourites. I can say that I like them all.”

Mirra Andreeva says Aryna Sabalenka played ‘amazing’ in Indian Wells final first set

Andreeva is currently the youngest player in the WTA top 10 by some margin, with 21-year-old next in that regard.

But it is undoubtedly the 17-year-old who has all of the momentum, having just enacted revenge on three-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka.

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It was indeed the Belarusian who knocked Andreeva out of the Australian Open earlier this season, but the youngster was desperate to avoid a repeat of that scenario at Indian Wells.

Very impressively, she also beat Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina in back-to-back events, having also beaten the top 10 duo in Dubai.

Her mentality was also raised in her winning press conference, with Andreeva asked if she was 100% mentally in the final due to not being 100% physically.

“I wouldn’t say that I was not 100% physically,” she replied. “Well, maybe not 100, especially in the first set, but then I managed to stay positive, and that helped me to be a little bit more active and aggressive.

“Yeah, I would say that the first set was a little… I would say that I didn’t play pretty good, but of course, you know, she played amazing. So there is not much I could do about it.

“So yeah, in the first set I didn’t feel 100% physically, but then with time, I just tried to fight and I tried to overcome it. Yeah, with time it happened in the end.”