Mirra Andrejeva will get the last point of the tournament herself. With a winner she becomes the Roland Garros champion of 2026. In two sets (6-3, 6-2) she convincingly beats the Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska. Then comes the release: as soon as the ball flies past her opponent, she falls to her knees on the clay.
It was not the biggest surprise that Andrejeva would reach the final in Paris. She may only be nineteen years old – the youngest Roland Garros winner since Monica Seles in 1992 – but tennis fans have been waiting for years for her first Grand Slam title. Since she won her first WTA match in 2023 at the age of fifteen, on the clay court of Madrid, expectations have been high. In that tournament she immediately reached the fourth round, by beating two top twenty players. After a fourth round at Wimbledon, she finished in the top fifty that year.
Maja Chwalinska (left) and Mirra Andrejeva, earlier in the tournament
REUTERS, Christophe Ena/AP
The following year she confirmed her status as a top talent by reaching the semi-finals at Roland Garros, and in 2025 she became the youngest player ever to win a WTA1000 tournament in Dubai. Immediately afterwards she also won Indian Wells. She impressed with how she moved around the court, how many balls she recovered and her creative play, but especially with her mental strength, because coming back from a set behind against world number one Aryna Sabalenka is certainly not easy.
Throwing rackets
That mental strength regularly failed her when her emotions got the better of her. Then she can rage at the crowd, throw rackets or burst into tears on the court when she loses her good game, which usually only makes things worse.
In this finale, however, Andrejeva remains in control of the tension. Immediately in the first game she breaks her opponent. She then loses her service game, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. It’s evenly matched until 3-3 in the first set, then Andrejeva opens a gap. The Russian finds a little more power in her blows, while Chwalinska starts to make more mistakes. She looks a little less fast than in her previous games and no longer gets the balls as deep into the field.
Chwalinska seems a bit tired and nervous, and that is not surprising. She had to win nine matches to reach this final, an achievement that no one took into account. The Polish woman is only the second qualifier ever to reach the final of a Grand Slam tournament, after Emma Raducanu, who won the 2021 US Open.
Poland’s Maja Chwalinska during the final.
JULIEN DE ROSA/epp
Chwalinska surprised her opponents with a very varied game. While tennis is generally dominated by hard hitters, Chwalinska does not rely on her strength. She is fast and has many different blows in her arsenal. She hits topspin forehands that bounce high, alternating with backhand slices that stay low to the ground, drop shots that put the player on the other side of the net completely out of position.
Yet Chwalinska, a great promise in the youth ranks, had little success until this tournament. Due to depression, she even temporarily stopped playing tennis, she never reached the top hundred and only reached the main draw of a Grand Slam twice before.
In Paris, Chwalinska reached the main draw by beating the Dutch Suzan Lamens, among others, in two exciting sets. She then got through the first two rounds quite easily, losing only one set in total until the final. She more than achieved her goal of reaching the top hundred: on Monday she will be the new number 21 in the world. She also won more prize money in this tournament than in her entire career combined.
Power and speed
Although many opponents had difficulty with Chwalinska’s playing style, Andrejeva has an answer for many of her balls, and the Polish woman lacks strength and speed. The first set goes to Andrejeva quite quickly. She remains focused, even in the second set she shows few emotions and maintains her high level, quickly gaining two breaks ahead. Only when she has to serve for the match do her nerves become visible: for the first time since the start of the first set, she is broken. But she immediately picks herself up, and with a break love she still crowns herself the new Roland Garros champion.
Her speech reveals the spontaneity and humor with which Andrejeva has won the hearts of many fans. “I’m not sure if I should thank you,” she says, laughing, to Mary Pierce, who is presenting the trophies. “Since you are my coach [Conchita Martinez] defeated you here once in the final.” She tries to address the audience in French – she has lived and trained in Cannes since 2022 – but eventually switches back to English.
She concludes by thanking herself, something that is very unusual, but which she now does with every title she wins. Her sponsor Nike has put it on a jacket, which she also wears during the ceremony: “I want to thank me.” Because, she says, I also have to thank myself for all the hard work and for continuing to believe in myself. “Only I know how difficult it was for me. So thank you to myself.”