She is Canada’s newest tennis sweetheart, with all the drama and the success that comes along with it.
Bianca Andreescu advanced to her first Grand Slam final at the US Open, where she will face one of her biggest idols, Serena Williams, on Saturday night.
Andreescu, just 19 years old, already had a viral moment with Williams when the 23-time Grand Slam champion suffered debilitating back spasms and had to retire from their final at the Rogers Cup in Toronto less than a month ago.
As Williams sat there crying, Andreescu went over and gave her a hug. She called Williams “a freaking beast,” and added that she knew exactly where Williams was having spasms.
“I know everything about you,” Andreescu said.
The exchange was caught on video and spread around the internet like wildfire.
Even hotter has been Andreescu’s on-court run. She has gone 43-4 this season while skyrocketing up the rankings from No. 208 into the top 10. If she loses to Williams, she will be ranked No. 9; if she wins, she’ll be No. 5.
“It’s just crazy what a year can do,” she said after beating No. 13-seed Belinda Bencic in straight sets in the semifinals on Thursday night. “If someone would have said that a couple weeks ago, I don’t think I would have believed them.”
Andreescu was born in Mississauga, Ontario, to Romanian parents. The family traveled back to Romania when Bianca was 7 years old, and that is where she started playing tennis. A few years later, they moved back to Canada, and she joined the Tennis Canada National Training Program in Toronto.
A year ago, she lost a straight-set match in the US Open qualifying. It was a time when Andreescu said she “wasn’t going through a good period in my life at that point. I was having problems with some relationships in my life, with my body, and even my mind, too.”
She went on to play smaller WTA events with total prize purses between $25,000 and $50,000. For comparison, the loser of Saturday’s match will bring home $1.9 million and the winner will fetch $3.85 million.
Andreescu then got into her first Grand Slam main draw at the Australian Open in January, losing in the second round. From there, she went to play a second-tier WTA event in Newport Beach, Calif., where she beat the most successful Canadian women’s player this century, Eugenie Bouchard, and eventually won the tournament.
By March, she beat two Grand Slam champions in Garbine Muguruza and Angelique Kerber en route to winning the prestigious WTA event at Indian Wells, Calif. The next tournament in Miami, she beat Kerber for the second time in seven days, despite needing a call from the trainer in the middle of the match to look at her chronically troublesome right shoulder.
During a brief handshake after the match, Kerber called Andreescu the “biggest drama queen ever.” Andreescu had to retire in the next round due to the injury, and then she pulled out of the French Open and Wimbledon.
Andreescu then threw out the first pitch at a Blue Jays game on April 3, celebrated her 19th birthday on June 16, and then showed up to the Rogers Cup in August for her first action in two months. After Williams withdrew in the final, Andreescu became the first woman from Canada to win what is considered the “Canadian Open” since Faye Urban in 1969.
Now Andreescu travels with a physical trainer, and said she has felt no pain whatsoever during these two weeks in New York. She also credits a regime of yoga and meditation, something her mother introduced her to when she was about 12 years old. Her mother, Maria Andreescu, has attracted attention herself, dressing elaborately and carrying around a small dog.
Andreescu also has felt the ire of the Queens crowd, hearing boos when she threw her racket and took an extended bathroom break during her fourth-round win over American underdog Taylor Townsend.
But now she is on to the final, with a chance to cap her monumental year with a historic win that also would keep Williams from tying Margaret Court for the most Grand Slam victories in women’s history.
“I think just everything is piling up together,” Andreescu said, “and working in my favor.”