Marta Kostyuk reaches her first Roland-Garros semifinal after the Ukrainian quarterfinal
Marta Kostyuk advanced to the semifinals of Roland-Garros 2026 after defeating Elina Svitolina 6:3, 2:6, 6:2 in the Ukrainian quarterfinal of the women’s singles. The match was played on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, on Court Philippe-Chatrier in Paris, and the tournament’s official website states that the encounter lasted one hour and 49 minutes. The fifteenth seed thus stopped the seventh seed and continued the most successful Grand Slam run of her career. The duel also had broader sporting significance because, according to the WTA, it was the first Ukrainian quarterfinal in the history of women’s singles at Grand Slam tournaments. With the victory, Kostyuk became the first Ukrainian woman in the Roland-Garros semifinals in the Open Era, while Svitolina, even after her sixth Paris quarterfinal, remained without a place among the final four at that tournament.
A match carrying strong sporting and emotional intensity
The match between Kostyuk and Svitolina was one of the central stories of the first part of the quarterfinal program in Paris. Although both players are from Ukraine and know each other’s circumstances well, their paths to the final stages of the tournament were different. Svitolina arrived in Paris as the more experienced player, a multiple semifinalist at other Grand Slam tournaments and one of the most important figures in Ukrainian tennis over the last decade. Kostyuk, on the other hand, confirmed at Roland-Garros her rapid rise on clay and continued a winning streak that has given her an increasingly important role among the contenders for the biggest titles.
According to the official Roland-Garros result, Kostyuk opened the encounter better and won the first set 6:3. Svitolina responded in the second set at the level that had kept her near the top of world tennis for years and leveled the match with a 6:2 win. The deciding set again went Kostyuk’s way, as she closed the match 6:2 and secured her first Grand Slam semifinal. The WTA states that Kostyuk won 13 of the final 14 points in the closing phase of the encounter, ending the duel, after a period of great scoreline tension at the beginning of the third set, in highly convincing fashion.
The victory carried special weight for Kostyuk because it came against a compatriot who has long been a symbol of Ukrainian resilience in international tennis. After the match, Kostyuk, according to the WTA, highlighted Svitolina’s influence on Ukrainian tennis and thanked her for her fighting spirit and for what she has meant to Ukrainian players coming after her. Such a statement fit the atmosphere of an encounter that was far more than an ordinary quarterfinal duel. The result decided the sporting continuation of the tournament, but at the same time it also marked a moment in which Ukrainian women’s tennis had a guaranteed place in the semifinals of one of the most important tournaments in the world.
Kostyuk turned the duel with more aggressive play in the closing stages
According to the WTA report, the beginning of the third set brought a period in which Kostyuk had to find tactical balance after Svitolina had taken the initiative in the second set. During the middle part of the encounter, Svitolina managed to push her opponent deeper behind the baseline, change the rhythm and dictate points more often with her forehand. In the first part of the deciding set, four consecutive breaks followed, further emphasizing the instability of the match and the pressure present on both sides of the net. In such an outcome, the decisive factor was that Kostyuk, after several hesitant points, once again accepted risk and began playing more directly.
In its match analysis, the WTA stated that Kostyuk, after a tactical conversation with her own box, remained more faithful to the plan that had brought her the advantage in the first set. The Ukrainian player increased pressure on Svitolina’s second serve, stepped into her shots earlier and used opportunities to finish points more efficiently. Once she took the lead in the closing phase of the third set, she played the final three games almost without interruption. Especially impressive was the fact that, according to the WTA, among the final 13 points she won, she had nine outright winners, showing that the victory did not come through passively waiting for mistakes, but through actively taking control.
Such an ending was also important for the broader picture of her development. Kostyuk had already earlier in her career been considered a player of great potential, but fluctuations and emotional pressure often kept her away from consistency on the biggest stage. In Paris 2026, she showed a different level of maturity, especially in moments when the duel could have gone in another direction. Instead of retreating after losing the second set, she found a way to return to the shots that gave her the initiative. It is precisely that ability to adapt that is one of the main differences between her earlier appearances and her current Paris breakthrough.
A winning streak that changed the picture of the Paris draw
Kostyuk entered the quarterfinal after one of the biggest victories of her career. The official Roland-Garros website reported that in the round of 16 she defeated four-time Paris champion Iga Świątek 7:5, 6:1, which was her first success against the Polish player after three previous defeats. That victory changed the dynamics of the women’s tournament because it removed one of the most dominant players in the recent history of Roland-Garros. According to Roland-Garros, Kostyuk had already extended her unbeaten streak on clay in 2026 to 16 matches with that result.
After the victory over Svitolina, that streak, according to the WTA, grew to 17 consecutive wins. The WTA states that it is the longest winning streak at Tour level since Iga Świątek’s run between April and July 2024. The same organization emphasized that Kostyuk is the fifth player in this century to open a clay-court season with 17 wins, after Venus Williams, Justine Henin, Serena Williams and Iga Świątek. Such a fact places her result in a context far broader than one successful tournament.
The streak did not arise only in Paris. The WTA states that before Roland-Garros, Kostyuk won titles in Rouen and Madrid, thereby gaining, ahead of the second Grand Slam of the season, the rhythm and confidence that transferred onto the Paris clay. In Madrid, according to the WTA, she defeated Mirra Andreeva, her next opponent in the Roland-Garros semifinal, in the final. That background additionally strengthens the importance of the upcoming duel because two players who have already played important matches on clay this season will meet in Paris, and the winner will reach the Roland-Garros final for the first time.
Svitolina remained without a Paris semifinal, but with her role as leader confirmed
Elina Svitolina reached the quarterfinal by defeating Belinda Bencic in the round of 16. The official Roland-Garros website reported that the seventh seed beat the Tokyo Olympic champion 4:6, 6:4, 6:0 and thereby secured her sixth Paris quarterfinal appearance. The tournament report emphasized that Svitolina had then recorded her tenth consecutive victory on clay, confirming her good form ahead of the encounter with Kostyuk. Ahead of the Ukrainian quarterfinal, Roland-Garros emphasized that the winner would become the first Ukrainian women’s singles semifinalist in the Open Era at that tournament.
Although the defeat to Kostyuk cost her another opportunity for a Paris semifinal, Svitolina remains one of the most important figures in the history of Ukrainian tennis. After the quarterfinal, the WTA stated that Kostyuk had become the third Ukrainian Grand Slam semifinalist after Svitolina and Dayana Yastremska. Svitolina had previously reached semifinals at other Grand Slam tournaments, but Roland-Garros has still remained beyond her reach at that stage. The WTA meanwhile states that her record in Paris quarterfinals is now 0-6, showing how often she has been close, but also how difficult it is to overcome the final obstacle to the closing stages in Paris.
For Ukrainian tennis, however, this defeat did not mean the end of the story, but a transfer of attention to Kostyuk. The winner herself emphasized Svitolina’s influence, and the WTA recalled that Svitolina had had a very successful record against Ukrainian players at Tour level before this encounter. With the victory in Paris, Kostyuk improved her head-to-head record against Svitolina to 2-1. Previously, according to the WTA, she defeated her in 2024 in Toronto by almost the same set pattern, while their first mutual Grand Slam duel went to Svitolina at the 2018 Australian Open, when Kostyuk was only 15 years old.
The semifinal against Mirra Andreeva brings a new major test
Kostyuk’s next obstacle will be Mirra Andreeva, the eighth seed, who defeated Sorana Cirstea 6:0, 6:3 in the second quarterfinal of the same day. The WTA states that Andreeva needed only 56 minutes for the victory and that she reached a Grand Slam semifinal for the second time in her career, again precisely in Paris. Against Cirstea, the nineteen-year-old player, according to the WTA, converted all six break points, finished the match with 18 winners and controlled the encounter from the first games. She thereby confirmed that she is entering the closing stages in an exceptionally convincing rhythm.
The head-to-head context favors Kostyuk, but offers no guarantee. The WTA states that Kostyuk leads 2-0 against Andreeva, with victories in the Brisbane quarterfinal and the Madrid final in 2026. The Madrid encounter is especially important because it came on clay and because Kostyuk then won one of the key titles in the streak that carried her to the Paris semifinal. Andreeva, on the other hand, has experience of playing the big closing stages in Paris and has already shown that the slow surface suits her. According to the WTA, at the moment she reached the semifinal she had 34 wins in the season including team competitions, the most among players in 2026.
The semifinal will therefore bring together two different, but highly current stories in women’s tennis. Kostyuk enters it as the player with the longest active winning streak on clay, with a historic Ukrainian result and with the great emotional intensity accompanying her tournament. Andreeva enters as a teenager who has already reached the Roland-Garros semifinal for the second time and who in the quarterfinal gave the impression of complete control. The stake is a first Grand Slam final for both players, which means that the winner in Paris will open a new page of her own career.
Ukrainian tennis received a historic Paris moment
The sporting importance of Kostyuk’s victory cannot be separated from the wider context in which Ukrainian players have been competing in recent years. The WTA reported that after the match Kostyuk spoke about a difficult night in Ukraine and dedicated the victory to the Ukrainian people and their resilience. In the same address, she also reflected on Svitolina as a player whose influence went beyond individual results. Such statements did not change the sporting facts of the match, but they emphasized why the duel on Philippe-Chatrier resonated more strongly than an ordinary quarterfinal result.
In tennis terms, the victory confirmed the depth of Ukrainian women’s tennis. Svitolina had for years been the most recognizable name of that generation, Yastremska had earlier reached a Grand Slam semifinal, and Kostyuk is now entering a phase in which she is turning her own potential into results at the biggest tournaments. Roland-Garros had already stressed in its quarterfinal preview that Ukraine would get its first semifinalist in Paris in the Open Era. After Kostyuk’s victory, that historic label received a concrete name and result: 6:3, 2:6, 6:2 against Svitolina.
For Kostyuk, however, the semifinal is not only a reward for one good match. It is the consequence of a streak built through the spring season, through victories in Rouen and Madrid, through the fall of four-time Paris champion Świątek and through the ability to withstand emotional and tactical pressure in the Ukrainian derby. That is precisely why her passage into the final four in Paris feels like the result of broader maturation, not a one-off surprise. Roland-Garros 2026 has thus, even before the final weekend, already gained one of its most important stories: the first Ukrainian women’s singles semifinalist in Paris and a player entering the closing stages with a streak that changed the course of the entire tournament.
Sources:
- Roland-Garros – official result of the Elina Svitolina – Marta Kostyuk quarterfinal, venue and match duration (link)
- WTA – report on Marta Kostyuk’s victory over Elina Svitolina, historical context, winning streak and tactical details of the match (link)
- Roland-Garros – report on Elina Svitolina’s victory over Belinda Bencic and preview of the Ukrainian quarterfinal (link)
- Roland-Garros – report on Marta Kostyuk’s victory over Iga Świątek in the round of 16 (link)
- WTA – report on Mirra Andreeva’s victory over Sorana Cirstea and context of the semifinal against Marta Kostyuk (link)