RUSSIAN young gun Mirra Andreeva is through to the fourth round of the 2025 Indian Wells WTA1000 event after an eye-catching win over Dane Clara Tauson for the second time in a month. The two hard-hitting compatriots faced off in the Dubai Tennis Championships decider, and like on that occasion, it was the higher ranked player that took home the chocolates.

While in their first 2025 encounter Tauson pushed Andreeva to a first set tiebreaker before the Russian ran away with it in the second set 7-6 6-1, there was none of that in the Californian desert, with the world number 11 dominating from start to finish in a 6-3 6-0 win.

The ninth seed needed just 64 minutes to completely dismantle Tauson, finishing with a dominance rating of 2.06 and winning 76 per cent of her first serve points compared to the usually damaging Tauson’s 50 per cent.

Tauson is no stranger to racking up big numbers of aces, but could only muster three, the same amount as Andreeva, while serving two double faults and hitting an errant 31 unforced errors in the match. By comparison, Andreeva only produced 13 of her own unforced errors, while hitting 19 winners (to Tauson’s 15) and never facing a break point.

The Russian generated nine break point opportunities and took five of them in the match converting the first of those five in the fifth game of the first set. She went on to win 10 of the last 11 games from 2-2 in the first set, with only a hold in the seventh game by Tauson the saving grace for the Dane.

Ultimately though, without her serve on point, Tauson did not have the variety of shots that Andreeva produced, and she was able to hit eight winners off her forehand and six off her backhand. while critically converting the majority of points across any rally length 12 shots or below.

Andreeva is now up to eight consecutive wins since her Dubai title, and will face another player she defeated in Dubai up next in world number seven, Elena Rybakina.

“I have been playing good recently,” Andreeva said post-match. “It just feels that I know exactly what to do on the court. For example, I would say that before on some tournaments, it depends on the match, but now I just know that I go out there, doesn’t matter who I play, the ball is coming to me and I know what to do.”

All matches on the day were straight sets and each provided a largely one-sided contest. Eighth seed Qinwen Zheng‘s victory over the out-of-form Kiwi Lulu Sun was the closest with a 6-4 7-5 scoreline, while Elina Svitolina caused arguably the only upset of the day – especially rankings wise – with a dominant 6-2 6-4 victory over 14th seed Danielle Collins.

Top 10 seeds Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula joined Rybakina and Andreeva in the Round of 16, while Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk knocked off American wildcard Caroline Dolehide, and Karolina Muchova beat compatriot Katerina Siniakova.