Mirra Andreeva overcame a demanding mental journey to win the French Open final in Paris, beating 114th-ranked Maja Chwalinska 6-3, 6-2 and becoming the youngest women’s clay-court Grand Slam champion since Monica Seles in 1992.
PARIS — Bent over with her hands covering her face, Mirra Andreeva couldn’t quite believe it. Knees pressed into the red clay on Court Philippe-Chatrier, she took in the moment the way teenagers do when something finally lands after years of pressure: processing first, celebrating second.
On Saturday. at 19. the Russian ended the run of 114th-ranked Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska with a 6-3. 6-2 victory in the French Open final. The scoreline said domination. What Andreeva described sounded like relief — finally overcoming what she called “so many demons inside” after years of being labeled a phenomenon before she was old enough to fully handle it.
“I’ve done a lot of visualizations before. Not just this tournament. but I’ve had dreams. I’ve had a lot of thoughts on how it’s going to happen. if it’s going to happen. when it’s going to happen. where. ” Andreeva said. still barely catching her breath as she spoke quickly. “The feeling in real life is so much better than in your dreams.”.
She paused after that, then added the line that matters for any player who spends their teenage years chasing a title:
“I can call myself a Grand Slam champion.”
Her coach, Conchita Martinez — a former Wimbledon champion — pointed to the same struggle from a different angle. “Her attitude is difficult,” Martinez said. “You tell her something, and maybe she’s not open to listening. … When she works hard and when she listens and she does everything, she has no limits.”.
After lifting the trophy, Andreeva acknowledged that stubbornness without trying to soften it. “I know I can be a tough cookie sometimes, and it’s pretty hard to put up with me,” she said during the trophy ceremony.
The win moved Andreeva a step beyond Martinez’s own bitter memory. Martinez lost the 2000 French Open final to Mary Pierce — a name now woven into the evening’s lineage as Pierce presented the winner’s trophy to the new champion.
Andreeva became the youngest woman to win the clay-court Grand Slam since Monica Seles was 18 when she claimed her third straight French Open in 1992.
Chwalinska, now 24, had her own emotional reaction as she handed Andreeva the stage: “You’re so young and talented. It’s so annoying,” she told her at the end.
Andreeva answered with a private, heavy message made public. In thanking people after the final, she took an unusual route by turning the focus back inward — thanking herself for believing even when it was hard, and naming the nervousness that followed her through these two weeks.
“I took the unusual step of thanking herself ‘for believing in myself, always giving my 100%, even when it’s tough, trying every day to be better as a person and as a player, believing that I can do this, fighting so many demons inside of me,’” the champion said during the ceremony.
“Only I know how tough it was for me,” she added. “How nervous I was throughout these two weeks.”
She also thanked her psychologist, saying the support had been close even if it wasn’t on-site. “Everything that you’ve told me I’ve been trying to use these two weeks,” Andreeva said, explaining that her psychologist was watching from Florida.
Chwalinska’s path to the final made the story even sharper. She was attempting to become the first qualifier to capture the Roland Garros title. Before that, she had been a promising junior alongside four-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek, but she began struggling with depression in 2019.
“Tennis is such a tough sport. It’s so individual. We start so early. We are basically kids when we start,” Chwalinska said after the final. “People are expecting that we are going to behave like adults already and we are just kids really. So the pressure is huge.”
The crowd at Court Philippe-Chatrier reflected those different pressures. When Chwalinska was introduced, fans held up red-and-white Polish flags and chanted her name: “Ma-ja, Ma-ja.”
Andreeva, meanwhile, drew less vocal support — though late in the match, the sound of “Davai, Mirra!” came from the Russian side.
There was also something else, briefly softer: when Andreeva spoke a few words of French during the trophy presentation, she drew a loud applause. “Thanks for your support today and over these past two marvellous weeks here in Paris,” she said in French. “It was very important for me.”
On court, the final played out under a mostly sunny sky, but wind mattered — and it helped shape how each player reacted.
Chwalinska double-faulted on the opening point of the match, but she was the first to hold serve in the fifth game to lead 3-2. Then the momentum changed fast. Andreeva won nine straight games to take control, finding a way to hit through the wind and answer Chwalinska’s spins and drop shots.
Chwalinska tried to retreat to handle high balls in the wind. Andreeva often moved forward, taking balls on the rise. “She definitely handled wind much better than me,” Chwalinska said afterward. “She was not running away from the ball.”
The numbers followed the same story of control. Andreeva produced 25 winners to Chwalinska’s 10, and she also committed fewer unforced errors, 26 to 29.
For Andreeva, the context around the title has been complicated for longer than this week. She was born in Siberia, moved to Sochi, and eventually to France to develop her career. She has also faced a situation that doesn’t come with a trophy ceremony: she has been forced to play under neutral status and without her country’s flag because of the war with Ukraine.
When Andreeva beat Marta Kostyuk in the semifinals, Kostyuk refused to shake her hand. That refusal has been the custom for Ukrainian players facing Russians since the war started in 2022.
Asked about the wider conflict as she played, Andreeva said: “Every person doesn’t want to have a war in the world. I never think about those things when I play.”
It was an attitude that helped her keep moving forward through wind. through nerves. and through the weight of being a teenage phenom. She burst onto the scene at 15 at the 2023 Madrid Open. where she became the third-youngest player to win a main draw match at a WTA 1000 tournament and made the quarterfinals.
Now, on clay in Paris, she finally did what her talent promised and her mind had kept out of reach. When she covered her face and crouched into the dirt, it looked like she was still catching up to the moment. By the time the trophy was in her hands, she wasn’t hiding anymore.
Mirra Andreeva Maja Chwalinska French Open final Roland Garros Grand Slam title Conchita Martinez Monica Seles Court Philippe-Chatrier tennis
Wait she’s 19?? that’s wild.
6-3 6-2 sounds like she was just cruising. I didn’t even know who Chwalinska was before this, so good for her getting to the final I guess.
So is the “114th-ranked” thing like she started 114th in the tournament bracket or something? Cause if she beat a qualifier ranked 114th then how is that a real grand slam? Also clay court lol. I’m probably missing it.
The article says youngest since Monica Seles in 1992, so does that mean nobody else has been the youngest since then or…? Either way, the whole “demons inside” line made me feel weirdly emotional for a tennis match. Congrats to her, I guess, but I’m still stuck on the part where she was covering her face like she was about to cry.