Mirra Andreeva 'forced to skip tournament' and may miss WTA Finals for brutal reason

Mirra Andreeva has reportedly been forced to skip an upcoming tournament, putting her at risk of missing the year-end WTA Finals. The teenage Russian has enjoyed a productive campaign, becoming the youngest player to win a WTA 1000 title at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. She also broke into the world's top 10 for the first time and is currently ranked as the fifth-best women's singles player.

In spite of her meteoric rise over the last 12 months, Andreeva is yet to consolidate her place at the upcoming WTA Finals. She would have been hoping to pick up some crucial ranking points at the Pan Pacific Open, which is being held in Tokyo. However, it has emerged that she will be prevented from playing for an unusual reason.

Doubles player Ellen Perez has claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that Andreeva was unable to secure a visa in time for the tournament. It means that her hopes of reaching the WTA Finals are no longer in her own hands.

Elena Rybakina will have a golden chance to secure the final spot ahead of Andreeva, with the 26-year-old able to pip her Russian rival by reaching the semi-finals of the Pan Pacific Open.

Given that she is the top seed and has received a first-round bye, she will only need to win two matches to get there. Rybakina will also be full of confidence after winning the recent Ningbo Open, beating Ekaterina Alexandrova in the final.

She will face Leylah Fernandez in the second round and could go up against Eva Lys or Victoria Mboko in the quarter-finals if she makes it through her opening test.

Andreeva will simply need to hope that Rybakina crumbles under the pressure, with the 18-year-old unable to do anything to influence the outcome.

She has lost her last three matches, suffering a surprise defeat at the hands of Zhu Lin at the Ningbo Open. Andreeva was previously beaten by Sonay Kartal at the China Open and Laura Siegemund at the Wuhan Open.

She explained how she was managing her expectations at the start of the Asian swing, saying: "You cannot win every match that you play and you cannot win every tournament that you play, so it's kind of a normal thing to lose.

"Obviously, sometimes when you're super close to win the match, it hurts a little bit more, it takes a little bit more time to kind of step back and just forget about that.

"It's just life. It's just how tennis works and with time, I learned how to kind of accept it and move on from tough losses."