Andreev on the rise after junior highs
It’s all starting to happen for Adrian Andreev. A top-ranked junior who made the jump to the professional game in 2019, the Bulgarian is beginning to make waves on both the ITF World Tennis Tour and ATP Tour – and all before his 20th birthday.
Titles at M15 Heraklion last November and M15 Antalya in January, and his first match wins at ATP level in Antalya (once more) and Singapore, have underlined the burgeoning potential in his game as he prepares to anchor Bulgaria’s bid to reach the Davis Cup by Rakuten World Group I Play-Offs in 2022 with victory over Mexico in Sofia this weekend.
Confidence, he says, has been key to his results over the past six months – and that confidence has been hard-earned.
“I have been working very hard on improving my shots, and I am working even harder physically,” Andreev said. “I think I’m recovering much better, doing my routines much better than I used to, and those things made the difference, I guess.
“Those titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour were really, really important. Winning in men’s tennis, whatever category it is, is really special. I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved, because it’s really tough – there’s no bad players, everyone plays well, and you have to really fight, really compete. I have to understand that, that I’m a good player, and have this confidence.”
As a junior, Andreev notched up over 100 wins on the ITF World Tennis Tour Junior circuit, ending 2018 as the world No. 2 – the same year he won a Youth Olympic Games silver medal and a boys’ US Open title, both in doubles, before finishing third at the year-end ITF Junior Finals in Chengdu.
By the time he left the junior ranks at the end of 2018, Andreev was already making strides on the ITF Men’s World Tennis Tour and his switch to the professional game in 2019 was buoyed by an ITF Junior Player Grant of $25,000, aimed at helping promising players worldwide to make a successful transition from the junior ranks.
“The biggest difference is that juniors break mentally more often than the pros,” Andreev said of the transition. “On the men’s tour, the players are really stable, keeping their level for long periods of time – that’s something I have to work on as well, to be able to find the consistency playing with them.
“For me, the ITF grant was huge. I could pay for my recovery, massages, physiotherapy, energy drinks – everything! I could pay for my travels. It gives you a lot of confidence when you can lose and you’re still okay. You feel much better – it helps a lot, that’s for sure.”
There's no denying the balancing act a professional tennis player faces when trying to reach the higher levels of the sport – reinvesting in themselves to reach the next level, a process that becomes ever more expensive as they climb the ranks.
“That’s why it’s important for me not to buy a car, for example, but to focus on improving and doing what I love – that’s playing tennis,” Andreev said.
“For sure, the money helps – you can do things much better when you have money: you can get a coach, a physio, work with someone. It’s huge. Obviously, if you feel any worries outside the court, this can mess with your head a little, but I never worry about money on court. In general I try not to think about anything – I just try to get in the zone, play as best as I can, focus on the game plan, not the positives or the negatives. I just try to play my tennis, show my level and enjoy myself.”
While 2021 is already off to a bright start, Andreev admits he is still a work in progress. His world ranking currently stands at No. 382, but having faced the eventual champions in both Antalya and Singapore – Aussies Alex De Minaur and Alexei Popyrin respectively – he now has a sense of the levels required to compete at the very top.
“I need to go on court with more confidence against those kinds of players,” Andreev said. “This gives me a little confidence boost, the belief that I can compete at this level with people who are playing great tennis.
“I’m focusing more on improving my game. Watching my matches, talking to coaches and other people so they can give me ideas of what I can do better. I don’t really focus on results or rankings, I just focus on improving my game. When you do that, the results come by themselves.”