Mirra Andreeva revealed how Lakers star, LeBron James played a key role in her maiden WTA 1000 title win at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championships on Saturday. She put up a stellar display of tennis in the tournament after a second-round heartbreak in Doha.

The 17-year-old managed to outperform top-seeded players like Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals followed by Elena Rybakina in the semifinals, to clinch her title. In the finals, she defeated the promising Dane, Clara Tauson 7-6(1), 6-1, and marched to victory.

During the post-match press conference, the Russian spoke about how she has been seeing a lot of interviews of the $800M-worth (as per Celebrity Net Worth) basketball legend James recently. She admitted taking a leaf out of James’ mentality into her game, which helped her win the title.

“I’ve been listening to a lot of LeBron James interviews & he said that It’s easy to be confident & play good when everything goes your way, but what makes you a champion is when you’re giving your best when you don’t feel great. So that’s what I tried to do today,” said Mirra Andreeva in the presser.

The Russian took an early lead in the match and continued to dominate her opponent with her incredibly strong serves. From being 2-0 down in the first set of the match, she quickly recovered as she gave a neck-to-neck fight to the Dane, known for her hard-hitting abilities.

Ons Jabeur, who had lost to her in straight sets at the Brisbane International this year, had predicted a bright future for the prodigy in an interview.

Mirra Andreeva’s future was rightly predicted by Ons Jabeur

Mirra Andreeva at the 2025 Brisbane International- Source: Getty

Mirra Andreeva was showered with compliments by Tunisian tennis player Ons Jabeur when she appeared on the Nothing Major podcast a while back. The hosts asked her to name one WTA player other than herself who was soon on the cards to win their first Grand Slams, to which she said:

“I’d say [Mirra] Andreeva, maybe not in 2025 or 26 but in the future. I played her once, and she really kicked my a** in Australian Open last year. But I was really surprised by her level, she has like a really solid strikes for someone her age. I can’t remember I had that much power when I was her age to be honest with you,” said Jabeur on the Nothing Major podcast [30:52 onwards]

Even though the 17-year-old hasn’t been able to win a Grand Slam yet, she will be someone to watch out for in future tournaments after her Dubai win.