{"id":715395,"date":"2026-06-04T22:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/715395\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T22:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T22:08:09","slug":"maja-chwalinska-stuns-diana-shnaider-to-set-up-french-open-final-with-mirra-andreeva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/715395\/","title":{"rendered":"Maja Chwali\u0144ska stuns Diana Shnaider to set up French Open final with Mirra Andreeva"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 Three weeks ago, at the start of French Open qualifying, Maja Chwali\u0144ska<\/a> had two straightforward goals. Best not to muddle the mind.<\/p>\n

Chwali\u0144ska, a 24-year-old Polish player who had yet to spend a full year on the WTA Tour, had a long-term goal and a short-term one.<\/p>\n

She wanted to crack the top 100 by the end of the year. In the short term, she wanted to win the three matches she needed to qualify for Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

Turns out, she could do both of them at once \u2014 and more.<\/p>\n

After nine wins on the clay courts of Paris, the world No. 114 is the lowest-ranked French Open<\/a> finalist in history, after defeating No. 22 seed Diana Shnaider on Thursday, 7-6(4), 6-4 in a semifinal that has a strong claim as the most compelling women\u2019s match of the tournament.<\/p>\n

With unshakable composure, jaw-dropping shotmaking and extraordinary defense that was especially impressive given her diminutive stature, Chwali\u0144ska became just the second qualifier to reach a Grand Slam final in the Open Era. Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open winner, was the first.<\/p>\n

Chwali\u0144ska will face 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva in Saturday\u2019s final. It will be her 10th match this French Open, including her three rounds of qualifying.<\/p>\n

Thursday featured a semifinal slate full of young players, lesser-known than Aryna Sabalenka, Iga \u015awi\u0105tek and Coco Gauff, especially to casual fans. It was the first Grand Slam singles event since 2011 where all of the final four women were under 25.<\/p>\n

Shnaider, 22, and Chwali\u0144ska (pronounced \u201cHva-LEEN-ska\u201d) were the considerably less experienced pair, and it showed in the freedom with which they played. Chwali\u0144ska played the first tour-level semifinal of her career Thursday.<\/p>\n

She had the crowd on her side the entire time. Polish fans, accustomed to attending the final weekend of the French Open thanks to four-time champion \u015awi\u0105tek, showed up and showed out in droves, packing the upper deck and waving fans and signs. The entire crowd seemed to be backing Chwali\u0144ska; when they chanted her name, it echoed under the closed roof on Court Philippe-Chatrier.<\/p>\n

She and Shnaider were tight because of the magnitude of the match and, perhaps, the way their styles overlapped. Chwali\u0144ska, short for a tennis player at 5 feet 5 inches, is a lefty who\u2019s used to chopping it up against her opponents and depriving them of rhythm. Shnaider, also a lefty who stands at 5 feet 7 inches, is an excellent doubles player who\u2019s been to two Grand Slam semifinals and won the Olympic silver medal alongside Andreeva at Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

Their first two games took 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Chwali\u0144ska and Shnaider quickly settled their nerves, but the extended rallies remained, to the crowd\u2019s delight. They gasped at the shotmaking from both women, and even the DJ on Chatrier couldn\u2019t resist \u2014 Queen\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Me Now\u201d played during a changeover in the middle of the first set.<\/p>\n

Chwali\u0144ska and Shnaider were happy to oblige. They carved each other to bits for more than an hour until inevitably reaching a tiebreak, where Shnaider finally grew frustrated that her superior power could not dent Chwali\u0144ska\u2019s stupendous defense.<\/p>\n

Down 4-5 in the tiebreak on Shnaider\u2019s serve, Chwali\u0144ska scrambled to get a racket on a fierce Shnaider forehand to the corner and managed to float a lob perfectly over her head to earn set point. The crowd lost its mind. Once they quieted down, Chwali\u0144ska calmly closed out the set.<\/p>\n

The second set carried on much like the first one did, with Shnaider and Chwali\u0144ska evenly trading blows.<\/p>\n

With Chwali\u0144ska about to serve from 3-4, Shnaider called for a medical timeout and lay down on the court to receive treatment. It was Chwali\u0144ska who had played three extra matches over the course of the tournament, but suddenly, Shnaider was struggling with her movement while Chwali\u0144ska appeared to have enough life left in her legs to run a marathon.<\/p>\n

She settled for extending her run here for one match more after breaking Shnaider to take a 5-4 lead and serving out the match.<\/p>\n

Regarding those goals from three weeks ago: Before the French Open, Chwali\u0144ska had earned $864,030 in career prize money, according to the WTA Tour. Her exploits at Roland Garros have so far earned her $1,624,000 \u2014 88 percent more.<\/p>\n

She is expected to climb to No. 21 in the world by making it to Saturday\u2019s final. She\u2019ll have a new short-term aim when she steps on court for the 10th and final time this tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Three weeks ago, at the start of French Open qualifying, Maja Chwali\u0144ska had two straightforward goals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,60173],"class_list":["post-715395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-top-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}