After six Grand Slam titles and a few weeks of coaching the great Serena Williams, Rennae Stubbs knows a thing or two about what makes a great tennis player tick. For Williams, Stubbs said in 2024, it was “a grudge for revenge.” Two years later, the Australian doubles phenom has put her finger on what Mirra Andreeva did differently from Maja Chwalinska to clinch the Coupe Suzanne-Lenglen.

“Massive win for Mirra Andreeva,” Stubbs posted on X. “She learned how to deal with the pressure and never allowed the wind, her opponent, or anything to interrupt her positive mindset today. It’s been a battle, but when you keep doing the right things, the right things happen. Congrats to her and her team.”

Those words are significant when spoken by someone with the credibility of Rennae Stubbs. She has coached Grand Slam players such as Eugenie Bouchard and Samantha Stosur; she knows the mental and physical demands of preparing a player for a Grand Slam and has spent years observing what separates winners from the rest.

Of Williams, she had said, “I think on the men’s side I would say that Novak [Djokovic] maybe, but I think there was no one who held a grudge for revenge more than Serena Williams, which is one of the reasons why she was so great, because she was never into complacency. It was always about, ‘it’s never going to happen again’.”

Her assessment of Andreeva’s final was spot on. She stated that even though the wind on Philippe-Chatrier was challenging all afternoon and Maja Chwalinska was unpredictable as a qualifier with nothing to lose, the key to the victory was Andreeva’s mental fortitude. The teenage Russian simply refused to be deterred by anything. She broke at love in the final game, dominated from the baseline, and closed out the match 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and 18 minutes.

During the tournament, Andreeva spoke about the psychological work that helped her maintain her composure. When negative thoughts crept in, she described imagining a stop sign, humming songs to refocus her attention, and meeting with a sports psychologist regularly. Stubbs, who understands the importance of such internal infrastructure better than most, recognized it right away. The phrase she chose, “when you keep doing the right things, the right things happen,” is not generic praise. It is the acknowledgement of the hard work Andreeva put in and how success isn’t a destination; it is the journey itself.

Andreeva, 19, is the youngest Roland Garros champion since Monica Seles in 1992. She is also the first Russian woman to win a Grand Slam since Maria Sharapova in 2014.

Rennae Stubbs’ own player returns to the courts next week

Rennae Stubbs was the coach on the sidelines when Serena Williams played her last competitive Grand Slam. Serena Williams makes her competitive return to tennis next week at Queen’s Club. She and 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko have been given a doubles wildcard.

Serena Williams, throughout her career, has won 7 Wimbledon titles and 23 Grand Slams in total. For over two decades, she defined what it meant to compete under pressure on a tennis court.

Andreeva will play on grass at the Bad-Homburg Open for the first time as a Grand Slam champion. Serena will be on the same surface at Queen’s Club, coming back after four years. Two players at completely different stages of their careers were brought together for a moment on Saturday by Stubbs.