Chwalinska speechless: she’s not the only one who doesn’t know what’s happening at Roland Garros

An unknown Polish woman reached the final of the tournament. It had never happened to a tennis player coming from the classification.

Until a few days ago, almost no one knew who he was. Maja Chwalińska. Probably even within the world of tennis, very few people would know who this 24-year-old Polish girl is.

But there are probably people from Porto and Oeiras who remember her; Let’s go there now.

When the tennis player took to the field in Paris way back, on May 18th, almost three weeks ago, her idea was to enjoy it and get surpass Roland Garros qualification.

Just that – enter the main frame – it would be a great achievement, looking at your CV: it’s just that I had never achieved enter the top 128 at Roland Garros. And he had only done it twice in tournaments Grand Slam: Australia last year (didn’t get past the 1st round) and Wimbledon in 2022 (lost in the 2nd round).

Now… is in the final.

The Polish woman who arrived at this tournament at number 114 in the WTA table, and with only 7 appearances in first-level WTA tournaments on her resume, with more defeats than victories on the women’s main circuit… is in the final of one of the biggest tournaments in the world.

So let’s look at Maja Chwalińska’s journey at Roland Garros:

Qualification
6-0, 6-3 vs. Alice Ramé
6-0, 6-1 vs. Carole Monnet
7-6(4), 7-5 vs. Suzan Lamens

Very quiet victories in the first two games, then a tight victory against another seed (17th, while Maja was the pre-designated 8th in this qualifying tournament). But he won them all sets. After:

Main frame
6-4, 6-0 vs. Qinwen Zheng
6-4, 6-0 vs. Elise Mertens
1-6, 6-3, 6-2 vs. Maria Sakkari
6-3, 6-2 vs. Diane Parry
7-6(3), 6-3 vs. Anna Kalinskaya
7-6(4), 6-4 vs- Diana Schneider

It’s a convincing journey. Note that, in addition to having won four partials by 6-0, more than that, Maja Chwalińska just lost one set until the end. In 9 games, in a total of 19 partials… he only lost one.

They might argue: he didn’t play against the best in the world. He didn’t catch Sabalenka, Swiatek or Rybakina from the front. Well, no. But he caught some of the best of these two weeks, including three top seeds and three French tennis players, “from home”.

How did you get to the final, coming from the first round of qualifiers? “It’s like a dream, honestly. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to say. I’m just very happy” – this is how an almost speechless tennis player responds, still on the court, after winning the semi-final.

In fact, no one really knows what is happening at Roland Garros. But now, despite “just wanting to enjoy the moment”, Maja certainly wants to win this Saturday’s final against the young Russian – and also a debutant in a tournament final Grand Slam – Mirra Andreeva.

If you win, you will achieve something rare: take home a cup. Two of the exceptions happened… in Portugal. In smaller-scale tournaments, first in Porto Open 2024 and beyond Oeiras Open this year.

Previously, in 2021, he was off the tennis courts for several months, due to a depression. It returned. And it has already entered history.