Congratulations, Mirra Andreeva – you just won Indian Wells for your second WTA 1000 title of 2025! You’ll go for the “Sunshine Double” starting this week in Miami.
But it won’t be easy for you.
Andreeva faces, statistically, the toughest draw for any of the top seeds at the Miami Open, the WTA 1000 event which starts March 18.
Underseeded Mirra Andreeva got a challenging draw for the Miami Open
Andreeva is fresh off a championship run at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., which concluded March 16. Andreeva won her second WTA 1000 crown of the year and is projected to rise to No. 6 in the world.
Andreeva goes for the “Sunshine Double” – titles in Indian Wells and Miami - as the No. 11 seed in Miami, as Indian Wells results did not affect the Miami seeding order. She will face the toughest tournament trail of the top 11 seeds, based on the average world ranking of likely opponents.
After a first-round bye, Andreeva likely will face Xinyu Wang, a top-40 player. From there, her most likely opponent in the round of 32 is No. 17 seed Amanda Anisimova – also a WTA 1000 winner this year and the best-seeded player Andreeva possibly could have faced in the Round of 32. Next up would be a possible four consecutive matches against Top 10 opponents.
No. 4 seed Jessica Pegula got the best draw among the top seeds. She’ll face either No. 88 Ajla Tomljanovic or a qualifier in her first match. Her third-round matchup is most likely against Anna Kalinskaya, the lowest seed among the seeded players.
Magda Linette is expected to move up to No. 34 in the world and just missed earning a seed for Miami. She instead faces, statistically, the toughest draw in the entire field. She faces former top 10 player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in one of the draw’s best opening-round matches. Linette then would conceivably play her last six matches against players ranked in the top 20.
In what might be a textbook example of why you shouldn’t always trust the numbers, Sofia Kenin has, statistically, the most favorable draw among the unseeded players. If she can get that far, Kenin would greatly benefit from a potential third-round match against Maria Sakkari, who is overseeded at No. 28 based on pre-Miami rankings but is projected to fall outside the top 50 in the new rankings on March 17.
That’s a big, big “if.” Kenin first would have to beat two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova, who is in the Miami draw as a wild card, and then would have to get past No. 3 seed Coco Gauff in the round of 64.
Anastasia Potapova also has a navigable draw for an unseeded player. She’ll face a qualifier in Round 1. She’d get a manageable matchup against No. 23 seed Marta Kostyuk in the round of 64.