Roland-Garros 2026: the tournament of surprises has produced an unexpected women's singles final
The twelfth day of Roland-Garros in Paris confirmed what had gradually become the main story throughout the second Grand Slam tournament of the season: the 2026 women's tournament slipped beyond the usual predictions and, by the closing stages, produced a final that could hardly have been foreseen before the start of the competition. According to the official Roland-Garros report, on Saturday, June 6, eighth seed Mirra Andreeva and Polish qualifier Maja Chwalińska will play for the Coupe Suzanne-Lenglen trophy. Andreeva defeated Marta Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 in the first semifinal on Thursday, June 4, while Chwalińska then beat Diana Shnaider 7-6(4), 6-4. Thus, the Paris tournament, marked by the elimination of several favorites and an exceptionally open draw, has produced a clash between a teenager who has already established herself near the top of women's tennis and a player who entered the main tournament through qualifying.
Andreeva stopped Marta Kostyuk's streak and reached her first Grand Slam final
Mirra Andreeva, the 19-year-old eighth seed, according to the official Roland-Garros announcement, produced one of the calmest and most controlled performances of her career and defeated the fifteenth seed Marta Kostyuk in 76 minutes. The WTA states that with this result Andreeva ended Kostyuk's streak of 17 wins on clay this season and secured the first Grand Slam final of her career. The Russian player, who competes without national symbols in accordance with the rules of international tennis organizations, entered the match with a negative record against the Ukrainian, including a defeat in the Madrid final six weeks earlier. In Paris, however, she reversed the balance of power and from the start imposed a tempo that Kostyuk was unable to follow.
According to Roland-Garros, after the match Andreeva admitted that she had been very nervous because she knew how successful Kostyuk had been on clay this season. Despite that, she remained tactically disciplined, moved well and used changes of rhythm when it was necessary to interrupt the Ukrainian player's attempts to get back into the match. In its analysis of the encounter, the WTA pointed out that Andreeva had lost only one set in six rounds and had given up a total of 32 games to her opponents, showing how convincingly she had moved through the lower half of the draw. Particularly important is the fact that she already had experience of a Roland-Garros semifinal from 2024, when, as a 17-year-old, she lost to Jasmine Paolini. After the match, the player herself, according to the WTA, emphasized that she now experiences matches of this importance more maturely and with greater focus than two years ago.
Kostyuk reached the semifinal after the biggest Grand Slam run of her career, including a victory over Iga Świątek in the round of 16 and an all-Ukrainian quarterfinal duel against Elina Svitolina. According to the WTA, her clay-court streak was one of the most impressive indicators of form before the closing stages of the tournament, but in the semifinal Andreeva constantly forced errors with her pressure and did not allow the duel to turn into a longer tactical battle. In the second set, Kostyuk briefly reduced the deficit and brought some energy back into the match, but Andreeva immediately responded with a new break and finished the encounter without major fluctuations. In doing so, according to WTA data, she became the third-youngest Roland-Garros finalist of the 21st century, behind Kim Clijsters and Coco Gauff.
Chwalińska continued her qualifying fairytale and brought down Shnaider
The second semifinal brought an even more unusual story. Maja Chwalińska, the 24-year-old Pole who entered the tournament through qualifying, according to the official Roland-Garros report, defeated the 25th seed Diana Shnaider and secured her first Grand Slam final. Roland-Garros states that before this tournament Chwalińska was the world No. 114, that through qualifying and the main draw she recorded nine wins, and that in Paris she became only the second qualifier in the Open Era to reach the final of any Grand Slam tournament. The comparison with Emma Raducanu, who won the 2021 US Open as a qualifier, therefore naturally suggested itself, although the circumstances and the path through the tournament were different.
Against Shnaider, Chwalińska played a match of marked tactical variety. According to the Roland-Garros report, in the first set both left-handed players looked for an advantage through angles, drop shots, approaches to the net and changes in bounce height. The Pole saved break points at 5-5, and in the tie-break she came back from a 2-4 deficit and won five consecutive points. That set, according to the tournament's official report, lasted as long as the entire previous encounter between Andreeva and Kostyuk, showing how different the rhythm of the second semifinal duel was. In the second set, Chwalińska kept her composure, despite a short medical treatment because of a problem with the upper part of her leg, and made the key break for 5-4 before converting her first match point.
After the victory, the Pole, according to Roland-Garros, said that everything seemed like a dream and that she was only trying to understand what had happened. In another official tournament announcement, she described herself as a person who grew up watching tennis for hours, and it was precisely that habit, as she said, that helped her read her opponents' games. Roland-Garros states that her ability to anticipate became one of the most visible features of her Paris performance. Chwalińska was not winning only with power, but by persistently disrupting rhythm, defending patiently and deciding to force her opponents to hit one extra ball. Such an approach was especially evident against Shnaider, the player who had knocked out world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka the day before.
A tournament that changed expectations almost from day to day
This year's Roland-Garros did not reach its final stages by a linear route. According to the WTA, Diana Shnaider produced one of the tournament's greatest comebacks in the quarterfinals when, against Aryna Sabalenka, she recovered from a set and a double-break deficit, won 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 and took the last ten games. The WTA stated that Shnaider thereby ended Sabalenka's streak of six consecutive Grand Slam semifinals. Even earlier, according to the official Roland-Garros announcement, Marta Kostyuk defeated four-time Paris champion Iga Świątek 7-5, 6-1 in the round of 16. That result meant that Roland-Garros would have a new champion even before the tournament entered its final days.
The surprises were not limited only to the women's draw. According to a report by Olympics.com, world No. 1 Jannik Sinner went out in the second round after leading Juan Manuel Cerúndolo 6-3, 6-2, 5-1, but then losing in five sets. That defeat was one of the most unusual reversals of the men's tournament and further strengthened the impression that the 2026 Paris Grand Slam does not allow reliance on favorite status. In such a context, the Andreeva - Chwalińska final does not seem like an isolated anomaly, but rather the final expression of a tournament in which form, adaptation to conditions and mental stability often carried more weight than reputation and previous results.
Roland-Garros announced on Thursday, June 4, that the women's singles semifinal lineup consisted of players born in the 21st century, further emphasizing the generational shift in the tournament's closing stages. The WTA also highlighted that a new Grand Slam champion was guaranteed, because none of the four semifinalists had won a title at the biggest tournaments. This gives the final double importance: Andreeva has the opportunity to confirm her status as one of the fastest-rising stars of the WTA Tour, while Chwalińska can complete one of the most unusual qualifying stories in modern tennis. For both players, Saturday's match will be their first meeting at professional level, the WTA states in its preview of the final.
Italian pair defended the mixed doubles title
The twelfth day on Court Philippe-Chatrier did not bring only the resolution of the women's singles. According to the official Roland-Garros report, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori defended their mixed doubles title with a 4-6, 6-3, 10-4 victory over Gabriela Dabrowski and Evan King. The Italian pair lost the first set, but then took control and in the decisive match tie-break built an early advantage that they held until the end. Roland-Garros states that Errani and Vavassori became the first pair to defend the Paris mixed doubles title since 2019, and also the first top seeds to win that competition in Paris since 2009.
The WTA reported that this was the fourth Grand Slam mixed doubles title for Errani and Vavassori in the last seven major tournaments, after they had previously also won the US Open. At the ceremony, according to the WTA, Errani said that she was still living a dream that continues, while Vavassori emphasized how much his partnership with Errani means to him both sporting-wise and personally. Their success continued the strong run of Italian tennis at the tournament, especially in the context of the men's closing stages, in which Matteo Arnaldi and Flavio Cobolli secured a semifinal duel against each other. Although mixed doubles often has less media visibility than singles, the defense of the title at Roland-Garros confirmed the continuity and special chemistry of the Italian combination.
What follows in Paris on June 5
According to the official schedule Roland-Garros published for Friday, June 5, the men's semifinals take center stage at the tournament. On Court Philippe-Chatrier from 2:30 p.m., Alexander Zverev and Jakub Mensik are scheduled to play, while the Italian duel between Matteo Arnaldi and Flavio Cobolli is scheduled not before 7 p.m. The winners of those matches will reach the final, which is scheduled for Sunday, June 7, the final day of the tournament. After the elimination of several big names in the earlier stages, the men's draw also entered the closing stages with a different balance of power than had been expected before the start of the competition.
In the other competitions, the official daily Roland-Garros review states that Yui Kamiji and Tokito Oda advanced convincingly in the wheelchair singles events, while in quad singles Ahmet Kaplan surprised the top seed Sam Schröder and reached the final against Niels Vink. In men's doubles, Henry Patten and Harri Heliövaara defeated the French pair Quentin Halys and Pierre-Hugues Herbert and reached their first Roland-Garros final. These results further broadened the picture of a day in which, alongside the biggest stories of the women's singles, important outcomes were also unfolding in other parts of the tournament. Roland-Garros 2026 thus enters the final weekend with a series of open questions and finals that, at least according to the course of the tournament so far, will hardly be reduced to simple predictions.
Sources:
- Roland-Garros – official daily review of the 12th day of the tournament and preview of Friday, June 5 (link)
- Roland-Garros – report on Mirra Andreeva's victory over Marta Kostyuk (link)
- Roland-Garros – report on Maja Chwalińska's victory over Diana Shnaider (link)
- Roland-Garros – official text on Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori's mixed doubles title defense (link)
- WTA – analysis of Mirra Andreeva's victory and the statistical context of her qualification for the final (link)
- WTA – report on Diana Shnaider's comeback against Aryna Sabalenka in the quarterfinals (link)
- WTA – preview of the Andreeva - Chwalińska final and information on their first head-to-head meeting (link)
- Roland-Garros – official report on Marta Kostyuk's victory over Iga Świątek (link)
- Olympics.com – report on Jannik Sinner's elimination in the second round of Roland-Garros (link)