This isn’t about potential anymore; Mirra Andreeva is officially delivering

Serving in the midst of a fraught first set, Mirra Andreeva stroked what looked like a clean ace outside. Kader Nouni, the chair umpire, disagreed.

“Let, first service,” he said.

Andreeva looked his way, made a sour face -- then hit the same blistering serve an inch or so higher for her first ace. A while later, she took seven of eight points from Clara Tauson in the tiebreak.

This was the furiously focused approach that carried Andreeva to a 7-6(1), 6-1 victory over Tauson in Saturday’s final at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

Andreeva is the youngest WTA 1000 champion ever, a format that has been in place for 16 years -- one less than her age of 17.

“I don’t think she’s promising anymore,” Tauson said, correcting a reporter’s question. “I think she’s at the top of our game. I mean, yeah, she never goes away.”

There are a host of dazzling comps, but savor these:

Andreeva is only the sixth teenager to win a WTA 1000 title. The others are -- no last names necessary -- Gauff, Swiatek, Andreescu, Bencic and Azarenka. Going back more than 30 years, Andreeva is the second teen, male or female, to win the title in Dubai -- after a guy named Nadal.

The scary thing? Andreeva doesn’t turn 18 until the end of April, meaning she’ll be a teenager for 26 more months. It’s fair to wonder how many more standards she’ll shatter.

“Of course it feels great,” Andreeva said afterward. “I’ve been dreaming of having a press conference with a trophy by my side, so finally it happened.

“But I saw winners drinking a glass of champagne. It’s a pity that I’m still 17. Soon I’m going to be turning 18. I hope that I will manage to win another tournament, and there I’m going to have my first glass of champagne in the press conference.”

Andreeva is the only teenager in the PIF WTA Rankings Top 100. With the help of a psychologist, she has mostly mastered the art of anger management and adopted the mantra of the plucky Disney “Frozen” heroine Elsa.

“I try to accept when sometimes things don’t go my way,” Andreeva said in her Friday on-court interview. “I kind of let it go.”

In Dubai, she beat three former major champions -- Elena Rybakina, Iga Swiatek and Marketa Vondrousova. Her six consecutive wins constitute the best run of her burgeoning career.

On the eve of the final, Andreeva candidly discussed her recent evolution from an unknown to a certifiable star.

“I was just playing,” she said. “If it doesn’t happen, if it doesn't work, and if I lose the match, everyone was still happy with my level. Now, it’s been two years now already -- oh, my God, old -- and now I have some kind of pressure that people are expecting some things from me. People are saying, `Yeah, well, she’s going to be No. 1. She's going to win the Slams. She’s going to be great.

“That’s another thing that we worked with my psychologist. It’s easier for me to think these people are saying this because they want to put pressure on me and they put pressure on me because probably they are afraid of the way I play. It helps me to go on the court with kind of anger, not to prove everyone that I really can do it, but to prove myself that I’m strong enough to handle the pressure and to really win these high-quality matches.”

Get used to it. The history she’s suddenly stepped into suggests great things going forward.

With the victory, Andreeva vaults into the Top 10 for the first time -- achieving a goal she set for herself in 2025. It’s only the third time this century a 17-year-old has pulled that off, following Maria Sharapova (2004) and Nicole Vaidisova (2006). A few others before that: Venus and Serena Williams (1998 and 1999) and Andreeva’s coach, Conchita Martinez (1989).

The new goal: Top 5 by the end of the year.

And what will she do with her nearly $600,000 in prize money?

“All questions to my dad,” Andreeva said. “It all goes on his credit card because I don’t have my own yet. I cannot have my own bank account because I’m not 18.

“I’m hoping that he will leave me some to spend somewhere, to buy chips and Coke. Now I think about it and I feel like I have everything I ever wanted. I won the tournament. I won it.”

More highlights from the final week of the Middle East Swing:

Honor Roll

Clara Tauson: The 22-year-old Dane fell one match short in Dubai, but she is still soaring this season. To start 2025, Tauson won her third career title in Auckland, beating eventual Australian Open champion Madison Keys en route (she is still the only player to beat Keys this year).

Her season-opening seven-match winning streak ended in a close third-round loss to World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open, but she regrouped with a Linz semifinal showing, then avenged her Melbourne defeat by upsetting Sabalenka this week.

Tauson will exit Dubai as this year's tour leader in match-wins (15) and with a brand-new career high ranking. Not too bad for the former Junior World No. 1, who struggled with injuries in the last few seasons.

"I feel like I put [in] more work every single year," Tauson said after the final. "This year was different. I feel a lot better on court. I feel a lot more at peace with how I play in my game. That's really nice."

Sorana Cirstea: The 34-year-old Romanian made the Dubai semifinals last year but missed the second half of 2024 due to foot injuries and surgery. A wild-card entry this year, she made it back to the quarterfinals by beating Top 12 players Daria Kasatkina and Emma Navarro and defended a large chunk of her points.

McCartney Kessler and Peyton Stearns: Two rising Americans earned their first career Top 10 wins this week in Dubai: Kessler bested her compatriot Coco Gauff, and Stearns stunned reigning Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen.

Sofia Kenin: The 2020 Australian Open champion beat three Top 25 players in a row (Donna Vekic, Marta Kostyuk and defending champion Jasmine Paolini) to make her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal in a year-and-a-half.

Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend: The Dubai doubles final was a rerun of the Australian Open final, where Siniakova and Townsend defeated Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko.

Hot Shot

It's only February and we already have a heavy favorite for Shot of the Year: Karolina Muchova's outrageous tweener-lob from the Dubai semifinals:

Notable Numbers

25: This was the 25th edition of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships as a WTA event. Former World No. 1 Martina Hingis won the inaugural edition in 2001.

3: Mirra Andreeva is the third teenager to reach a WTA 1000 final since 2020 -- and all three of them won the title. The others were Iga Swiatek at 2021 Rome and Coco Gauff at 2023 Cincinnati.

15: Clara Tauson exits Dubai as this season's match-win leader so far. She has won 15 matches in 2025.

158: With her first-round win over Anhelina Kalinina, Victoria Azarenka has equalled Caroline Wozniacki for the most WTA 1000 match-wins on hard court (158) since 2009, when the WTA 1000 tier began. 

From the Camera Roll

Bullseye: Linda Noskova placed the ball splendidly during her run to the Dubai quarterfinals, including a Top 5 win over Jessica Pegula:

The 1994 Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez kept numerous balls in the air as her charge Mirra Andreeva swept to the Dubai title.

Next Up

With another successful Middle East Swing in the books, the Hologic WTA Tour heads to North America this week for its next two events, which start on Monday, Feb. 24.

Mérida: Draws | Scores | Order of Play

The Mérida Open Akron in Mérida, Mexico will host its first edition as a WTA 500 event, having been a WTA 250 tournament in 2023 and 2024. The outdoor-hardcourt event will feature two of the current Top 10 as its top two seeds, Emma Navarro and Paula Badosa.

Austin: Draws | Scores | Order of Play

And in the United States, the WTA 250 ATX Open will run concurrently in Austin. World No. 5 Jessica Pegula will top the field in the capital city of Texas.