What makes Mirra Andreeva so special?

While Clara Tauson was off-court on a toilet break after losing the first set of the recent WTA Dubai 1000 final, her opponent Mirra Andreeva sat calmly in her chair, a well-worn notebook open on pages full of scrawlings resting on the towel covering her lap.

The set had been a scratchy one for both women, yet Andreeva wasn’t exactly poring over the bromides and reminders in that diary. The 17-year old just sat, eyes trained on the middle distance, until she carefully opened the lid on a go-cup and popped a treat—just one—into her mouth. When Tauson returned, Andreeva shut the notebook, set it aside, and rose to take the court.

Tennis-wise, Andreeva is proving to be a quick—very quick—study.

In Dubai, Andreeva exhibited the guile and poise of a natural-born champion as she eliminated three Grand Slam singles winners (Marketa Vondrousova, Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina) en route to securing the first blue-chip title of her blossoming career. The capstone, , was a breakthrough win at various levels.

Read more: Two minutes with Mirra Andreeva, tennis’ new teen queen

“It's easy to be confident and it's easy to play good when everything goes your way, you feel like the ball is flying ... you hit a lot of winners and everything,” Andreeva told reporters in Dubai after she won.

Conceding that, form-wise, it was not her best day, she added: “But I just told myself, ‘Well, you can either let that negativity come into your head and kill you, or you can choose to be 100% mentally and fight for every point.”

Sure, that final observation is something of a cliche. It’s easy to pay lip service to it, far more difficult to live by it—as Andreeva did in Dubai, where she became the first 17-year old since Nicole Vaidisova in 2007 to crack the WTA Top 10. Moments after her big win, pundits and fans near and far declared her a surefire Grand Slam champion and future WTA No.1.

“Mirra Andreeva is going to be number one in the world at some point,” Andy Roddick predicted on his Served podcast.

Coach of champions Rick Macci told me: “She's the real deal. The wild card here is the stuff between her ears, that mental strength. This is someone who never plays afraid and that makes her very different from most of the players on the tour.”

All this may come as something of a surprise if you haven’t been paying close attention, or even if you have, but your impressions of the 5-foot-9 right-hander were formed last year when, still just 16, she upset Ons Jabeur and reached the fourth round of the Australian Open.

At that stage, she was easily mistaken for something of a clone—one of the many precocious Russian or Eastern European youngsters who clobber the ball, two-handed on the backhand side, always a threat to go on a sizzling run or, on any given day, beat anyone.

But she has swiftly evolved well beyond that category.

Mirra Andreeva is going to be number one in the world at some point. Andy Roddick on the Served podcast

Besides, the days when “can’t miss” players were easily identified by a specific shot or talent—a monstrous backhand, a walloping serve—are long gone. Training has gone so high level these days that beyond some baseline requisites, it’s all about nuances. Andreeva has nuances aplenty.

“I was watching her [in Dubai] and thinking ‘Why is nobody talking about this?,’” Roddick said. “She has 30% runway in physicality. She is going to get bigger, stronger and faster. It’s not as if it is going to go the other way.”

Point taken. But the add-on is that there’s nothing in her game at the moment that needs fixing. She is already an extremely smooth player, her technique nearly flawless. She’s as mobile as Jannik Sinner and her game is equally seamless. With adult strength she will be that much more dangerous.

“There's nothing bio-mechanically that's like, ‘Well, under pressure, you know that could bubble up and be a problem,’” Macci says.

Andreeva has played just one more match than No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka as of the conclusion of Dubai. But she has already hit 77 aces—24 more than Sabalenka. Only Elena Rybakina (104) and Madison Keys (88) have detonated more. Those aces are launched with an action that is both explosive and leisurely, off the platform of a powerful knee bend. Ten aces were foundational in Andreeva’s Dubai upset of Swiatek.

Outstanding “movement” has become the most prized asset in the game and Andreeva already has it, even if those leg muscles aren’t fully realized yet. Roddick described her as “an elite mover already,” and suggested that she is so adept at countering others who are equally nimble that “she doesn’t have to go big to go through you.”

To some degree, that ability owes to how adeptly Andreeva re-directs shots to disrupt and alter the flow of rallies and take control of points. She does this earlier, more frequently, and better than most other players. It gives her an edge, the way Macci sees it, because, “when you're not as confident, you maybe stay in the [safe] cross-court rallies waiting for an opportunity."

"But she exploits that weakness, or just takes it away, early, with a directional change," he says, "and that damages an opponent’s confidence even more.”

Andreeva’s stance as a receiver is flexible but fairly neutral, her intent to initiate a rally. Her shots are relatively flat, but she can apply spin by degrees and both her forehand and two-handed backhand are difficult to read because she re-directs, or goes inside-out, with such ease.

Few players are as willing or good at opening up the court, and she has no reluctance to follow up with an approach to the net. Players are often praised for their willingness to pull the ripcord and go down the line.

“She’s not afraid to pull the trigger up the line,” Macci says. “Even from a tough position.”

Macci is also impressed with Andreeva’s use of slice, particularly when she’s forced way wide on the forehand side and forced to swipe at the ball in desperation (Macci calls it her “Russian woodchopper forehand”). It’s a terrific recovery shot that presents an opponent with an uncomfortable, skidding reply to a point that already appeared won. And the way Andreeva hits it, open to the net with legs wide, enables her to get out of the corner, pronto.

Aficionados can savor such style-and-technique based details endlessly, but ultimately the hallmark of all great players is an innate understanding of the game that lives side-by-side with the drive to win. For some, like Roger Federer, Martina Navratilova, and Andre Agassi that involves a learning experience. For others, like Chris Evert, Pete Sampras, and Monica Seles, it seems innate. Andreeva may belong in the latter category. Time will tell.

“There's stability there at every level,” Macci says. “But it’s the mental part that’s so important. That's what I see, that rock solid, right here, right now, finite focus. That can change when you get success. But somehow in this case I don’t think it will.”