Mirra Andreeva won two tiebreaks to beat Ekaterina Alexandrova for the first time in three meetings in the 2026 Beijing quarterfinals. WTA’s October 9 preview recorded four breaks from seven opportunities and five of the final six points in the second-set tiebreak.
Alexandrova had served for the opening set at 5–3 and later led 6–5. Andreeva extended the set when her opponent approached its finish, then took it through the tiebreak. A straight-sets result can therefore contain several moments when losing a set is close.
The direction of pressure changed in the second set. Andreeva let a 5–2 lead disappear before another tiebreak. She first had to recover a deficit, then recover her scoring after losing a lead. Winning five of the last six points completed the second adjustment.
At that preview’s cutoff, she had won eight consecutive sets after dropping the first set of her opening match, with Nikola Bartunkova next. Keep mid-set leads, break opportunities and the final tiebreak passage as separate entries when reconstructing this quarterfinal. Together they explain more than the straight-sets label.
