In the final weeks of her first season competing at the highest level, the best teenager in the world found herself close to a perfect ending. Facing off against her good friend and compatriot Daria Kasatkina in the Chinese city of Ningbo, Mirra Andreeva battled hard with hopes of winning the biggest title of her career. For a while, she had positioned herself well for victory, but she instead fell in three excruciating sets.

By the time the trophy ceremony had begun, tears of frustration were rolling down her face. Despite Kasatkina’s admirable attempts to console her younger friend and the sweet sportsmanship they shared, the 17-year-old struggled to accept the defeat. She was inconsolable throughout both speeches and back into the locker room.

“This was a bit heavy,” says Andreeva, laughing, as she reflects on her breakthrough season. “Not a nice moment. After, with Dasha, we shared nice moments together. She tried to calm me down. I don’t think she succeeded because I started crying even more.

“It’s a learning experience. I just have to accept it. Now when I look at those videos when I’m crying, I just laugh at myself because I couldn’t hold it inside. It’s an experience that had to be there in my career.”

While it was an essential learning experience for Andreeva, her strong emotions were also an instructive sight for those watching. Those tears showed how much she cares about her craft and the high standards she sets for herself, even at such a young age. She refuses to accept anything but success.

That mentality has served her well. At the beginning of the new season, Andreeva remains in a class of her own in her generation. The only teenager ranked in the top 100 of the WTA rankings, this week she rose to a career-high No 15.

It has been nearly two years since Andreeva, a Russian who resides in Cannes, France, emerged on the tour with a surprise run to the last 16 at the Madrid Open, one of the biggest tournaments in the world, at just 15 years old.

After finishing 2023 ranked No 46, she kept on moving. Last year, Andreeva reached her first grand slam semi-final at Roland Garros by becoming the only player that year to defeat Aryna Sabalenka at a slam, won her first WTA title, in Romania, and quickly broke into the top 20.

Andreeva cites her work with her coach, Conchita Martínez, the 1994 Wimbledon singles champion, as a key factor in her success, but also playfully assesses the Spaniard’s contributions as merely “OK” with room for improvement. For her part, Andreeva believes she can sometimes be a pain to work with.

“I would say that I’m still a kid sometimes,” she says, smiling. “I can get angry. If [she] said something I didn’t like, I’m like: ‘OK, well, I’m going to do something she doesn’t like as well.’

“I try to piss her off. She’s like: ‘Oh, my God, what are you doing?’ We start laughing about it and we forget about all of that. I just can be a little pain in the ass sometimes. But she’s doing a good job so far. She’s OK.”

That mischievousness is also reflected in Andreeva’s playing style. In a sport filled with many incredibly strong athletes and supreme ballstrikers, she has found success through an extremely cunning, cerebral playing style.

She understands how to pick apart her opponents’ weaknesses and makes up for her lack of raw power through her ability to deflect the pace from the ball and to sharply change directions from either groundstroke and to both sides of the court. Armed with such a well-rounded game, many of the pre-match gameplans crafted by her coaches never make it to the court.

“Sometimes I remember things. Most of the time I just go on court and I know that maybe, for example, her forehand is better than her backhand so I should stick to her backhand more,” says Andreeva.

“I kind of improvise what I do on court. That’s the thing that helps me because I never think of what I have to do. I just go on court. I see how it is. I see what’s going on. I just decide there.”

More than two decades before Andreeva’s birth, Martínez built her excellent varied style that kept opponents guessing with an array of different speeds and direction changes. Nine months into their collaboration, Martínez seems an ideal figure to help guide one of the most talented youngsters to fulfil their potential.

Andreeva says her 2024 season was a journey towards greater self-belief and composure and growing maturity is reflected in her positivity. “I’m known [as] the person who would think negative most of the time. Even last year in the beginning. Now I’m noticing that it was not right, the way I was thinking, the way I was approaching the matches, what kind of thoughts I have during the match as well.

“When we started working together, she definitely brought some positivity. Now when I miss, for example one year ago: [I would say]: ‘Oh, my God, I cannot play tennis, why am I doing this?’ If I compare myself to this day, I would say: ‘Well, it’s OK. It was a good miss. We just keep working.’ This is the difference.”

Last week in Brisbane, the first tournament of the season, Andreeva showed she is ready for another massive year, impressively reaching the semi-finals before being defeated by the eventual champion and world No 1 Sabalenka.

She is right where she wants to be, one of the best players in the world and desperate for more.