Three months on from her historic run to the Roland Garros final as a qualifier, Maja Chwalinska’s potential to build on it remains unproven.

Wins have been hard to come by for the Pole — between Roland Garros and the US Open, she compiled just a 1-5 record. But there were plenty of mitigating factors against her results being termed a slump just yet. Chwalinska injured her ankle up match point against Mananchaya Sawangkaew in the Wimbledon first round; visibly hampered, she went on to lose that match. She suffered another opening exit at the US Open — but her opponent, Taylor Townsend, was undoubtedly one of the most dangerous unseeded players in the draw.

Kicking off the first Asian Swing of her career, Chwalinska returned to winning ways in impressive fashion, defeating wild card Rebecca Sramkova 6-4, 6-2 in the Singapore Tennis Open first round on Monday. The No. 5 seed stuttered when closing out the first set, which she had led 5-2, but her signature wizardry was on full display as she imposed herself in the second.

‘Disbelief!’ Spin-laden Chwalinska return bounces back over net in Singapore

Chwalinska’s most magical moment also helped her tighten her grip on the scoreboard. At 3-2 in the second set, Sramkova slammed a first serve out wide, and Chwalinska barely managed to get her racquet on the ball for the return. Despite that, she managed to load it with so much backspin that it dropped just over the net — then bounced back on Chwalinska’s side of the court, a literally unreturnable stroke of genius.

It also gave Chwalinska a pair of break points, duly converted, and the 24-year-old did not concede another game. 

“I’m very happy with the win today,” she said in her on-court interview. “Every win counts, and every first match is tough. Very happy to get through it.”

The World No. 25 will next face either Oleksandra Oliynykova or Vivian Wolff in the second round.

Chwalinska wasn’t the only Grand Slam finalist putting on a show at the OCBC Arena. No. 6 seed Leylah Fernandez advanced 6-2, 6-3 past Japanese qualifier Kyoka Okamura — but the scoreline doesn’t reflect the high level of the contest, in which the pair extended their 17 games to a whopping 2 hours and 19 minutes in total.

The first set contained a total of 23 deuce points — each game but the last featured multiple deuces. But it wasn’t just the closeness of the competition that had the crowd in raptures but the sheer quality that both players brought, with 30-year-old Okamura belying her No. 322 ranking, 1-4 career tour-level record and the eight-match losing streak she had endured prior to Singapore by matching Fernandez all the way for shot-making moxie and breathtaking reflexes.

Both players excelled at exquisitely angled volleys, but Fernandez came out on top of the two wildest exchanges — the first after getting dragged up the court by a net cord, then out-duelling Okamura at net; the second to convert set point in the first set, withstanding an Okamura tweener to put away a stretch volley.

No wonder both players had broad grins on their faces as they approached the net for the handshake. Fernandez will bid to bring the same form to her second-round match against either Alycia Parks or lucky loser Mei Yamaguchi.

Earlier, Aliaksandra Sasnovich defeated Daria Kasatkina 7-5, 6-0 to set up a second-round meeting with No. 1 seed and Roland Garros champion Mirra Andreeva. Qualifier Nao Hibino, 31, came through an entertaining throwback encounter against 33-year-old former No. 10 Kristina Mladenovic 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in 2 hours and 20 minutes. The Frenchwoman — who claimed her seventh Grand Slam doubles trophy at Wimbledon this year — showed off plenty of finesse in the first two sets, but paid the price for missing two set points at 5-4 in the opener. Hibino surged in the home stretch to score her first main-draw win at WTA 500 level or above since Roland Garros 2025.