WUHAN: Russian sisters Mirra and Erika Andreeva will meet for the first time as professionals in the second round of the Wuhan Open in China.

The 16th-seeded Mirra, 17, defeated Chinese wild card Xiyu Wang 7-6 (5), 6-3 on Tuesday. Older sister Erika, 20, defeated Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska 7-5, 6-4 in her opening match on Monday.

“It will be like a nightmare to play against her,” Mirra said after her win on Tuesday. “It will be a pretty weird match. She will know what I will do on the court, and I know what she does. I think it’s going to be fun for the people who are watching, but really stressful for the both of us.”

Mirra said the sisters prefer not to play — or even practice — against one another because “we’re nervous about each other.”

“For example, if she does a lot of mistakes or I see she’s unhappy or worried, I start to be worried for her, then I cannot play normally,” she said after defeating Wang. “When she sees that some bad stuff happens to me, she cannot play normally, she cannot practice.

“We said we can do normal practices, hitting the ball, moving, doing some cross-courts, but no playing because that would not be good for both of us.”

The Andreevas will become the third set of siblings to face each other in a WTA Tour main event draw in the past decade, joining Serena and Venus Williams and Czech twins Karolina and Kristyna Pliskova. It will be the first such meeting since the Serena defeated Venus in the second round at Lexington in 2020 in their 31st — and final — tour clash.

In other action at the WTA 1000 tournament on Tuesday, Poland’s Magda Linette eliminated No. 11 seed Liudmila Samsonova of Russia 6-2, 6-2.

American Amanda Anisimova needed only 73 minutes to wrap up a 6-2, 6-4 win over Spain’s Cristina Bucsa. Her second-round opponent will be No. 13 seed Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, who outlasted Aremenia’s Elina Avenesyan 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (2).

Other first-round winners included Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova, Kamilla Rakhimova and Veronika Kudermetova, Romania’s Jacqueline Cristian, Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti, Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva, Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko, Czech Katerina Siniakova and Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova.

Meanwhile, organisers said that former world number two Paula Badosa has withdrawn from the Wuhan Open amid a racism row over an online photo.

The organisers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic.

Media outlets including Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper reported earlier that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes.

The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the China Open, and was posted online by her coach Pol Toledo.

It sparked a social media uproar and has since been deleted.

The world number 15 apologised for her behaviour in a post on social media platform X on Monday.

“Hey guys! Really sorry didn’t know this was offensive towards racism. My mistake,” she wrote. “I take full responsibility. These mistakes will make me learn for next time. Hope you understand.”

Badosa was replaced in the draw by lucky loser Bronzetti.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2024