Fourth seed Mirra Andreeva finally beat Ekaterina Alexandrova, winning a tight China Open quarterfinal 7-6(4), 7-6(3) on Thursday in Beijing.
The all-Russian match lasted 1 hour and 55 minutes on the outdoor hard courts at the National Tennis Center, and it sent the 19-year-old into the semifinals of the WTA 1000 event.
Neither player could pull clear. Both sets went to a tiebreak, and Andreeva won both of them. Andreeva had lost both earlier matches to Alexandrova and had not won a set in either. She left the National Tennis Center with her first win in the rivalry, and as the youngest player to reach the China Open semifinals since Agnes Szavay in 2007.
A match that slipped, then came back in two tiebreaks
Nothing was settled in regulation. Mirra Andreeva edged the opening set in a tiebreak, 7-4, after a tight first hour on outdoor hard courts.
The second set looked to be running away from Ekaterina Alexandrova. Andreeva led 4-1 and later served for the match at 5-3. The older Russian would not fold. She hauled the set back to 6-6 and forced a second tiebreak.
That was where Andreeva finished it. She fired a forehand winner to lead 3-2, let out a roar, and won five of the last six points to close the breaker 7-3. The scoreline was tidy. The path to it was not.
Mirra Andreeva did not dress the win up as comfortable
“Even when I had an advantage in the second set leading 5-2, I felt like she was still pressuring me,” Mirra Andreeva said in her post-match interview. “I felt like she was playing better and I didn’t take my chances. I could have played more aggressive, but what a match this was. I’m super happy with how it went.
“She played unbelievable today, and I’m very happy to get my very first win against her.”
That first win moves the head-to-head to 1-2 at WTA Tour level. The earlier losses came on clay in Stuttgart in 2025 and on grass in Bad Homburg in June 2026. Beijing was their first meeting on a hard court, and the first time Andreeva found a way through.
Fourth WTA 1000 semifinal, and a teenage list only Coco Gauff tops
The result sends Mirra Andreeva into her fourth career WTA 1000 semifinal. Since that format was introduced in 2009, only Coco Gauff, with five, has reached more WTA 1000 semifinals as a teenager.
Andreeva, 19, had looked sharp getting there. She beat Daria Snigur 6-2, 6-2 in the round of 16. Alexandrova had been just as clean, dropping only four games in a 6-2, 6-2 win over fifth seed Linda Noskova. Two players who hold serve well were always likely to need tiebreaks. The difference was who took the big points once the sets went to a shootout.
Alexandrova, 31, had already made history of her own in Beijing by becoming the oldest player to reach a first China Open quarterfinal. She could not add a first semifinal. Andreeva’s return and her nerve in both breakers were just enough.
Nikola Bartunkova waits in the last four
Mirra Andreeva will next face 26th seed Nikola Bartunkova, who beat seventh seed Karolina Muchova 6-3, 6-0 earlier on Thursday. A win there would put the Roland Garros champion into Sunday’s China Open final.
For now, the story is the rivalry she had never won. Andreeva arrived 0-2 and 0-4 in sets against a compatriot who takes the ball early. She left Diamond Court with the first win of that series, a place in the last four, and a match she was happy to have survived.