Maja Chwalinska’s French Open run has transformed a qualifier who once worried about paying a hotel bill into a finalist set for a massive prize, new sponsor patches, and a ranking jump. Her story sits beside Emma Raducanu’s landmark breakthrough five years ag
Thursday night ended with Maja Chwalinska down on the court. the floor taking the impact after she sealed her place in the French Open final. The opponent was Diana Shnaider. The prize was a final spot against Mirra Andreeva—and a moment that has turned the 24-year-old Polish qualifier into one of the tournament’s defining headlines.
At the start of her run, the outfit told its own story. Her opening-round victory came in a slate blue top and a pair of black shorts, with no sponsor logos anywhere. Even after that. the look shifted only slightly: she later picked up a green Lacoste top carrying official Roland Garros branding. and she still had no sponsor.
That concern wasn’t abstract. Chwalinska. the world No 114. had worried she might not be able to pay her hotel bill the longer she remained in the tournament. In a fortnight where underdogs survive by margins—tight draws. tough nerves. one break of play—no one expected her to reach a Grand Slam final. let alone get there at all.
Then the timeline changed. After she secured the final. her green top was speckled with a couple of logos: Oshee. a Polish hydration drinks brand. which Chwalinska revealed has stumped up the cash for her hotel. and trading company XTB. The mechanism is familiar to tennis fans now: temporary “patch deals” can be worth an extra £10,000 to £20,000 per match. For the biggest names. the permanent sponsorships can reach into the millions—Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz are cited in the same breath—but for Chwalinska this was different. This was survival first, then suddenly branding.
“When asked about her changing outfits,” Chwalinska said: “I mean, there is no story, really. I’m not sponsored, so I guess that’s the story.”
It reads like a player shrugging off the spectacle, even as the consequences stack up fast.
Because reaching the final guarantees her a payday of £1,200,000. If she wins against Andreeva, that figure rises to £2,400,000. The ranking impact could be just as steep: her position will jump to at least 21st in the world. and could rise to 14th if she beats Andreeva. The run also arrives at a slightly awkward moment for one major target. It came too late for automatic Wimbledon qualification, but the level of performance here will “surely guarantee” her a wildcard. There’s an additional twist: she could even be seeded if she gets one.
Chwalinska’s breakthrough invites an obvious comparison to Britain’s last Grand Slam champion, Emma Raducanu. Raducanu’s life “would never be the same again” after she clutched the US Open trophy to her chest five years ago. Within days, she had a multi-million deal with Tiffany, and ones with Dior, Evian and Porsche followed.
The money rolled in, but the account came with a cost. Raducanu reflected ahead of the French Open: “In my life everything changed upside down. I didn’t really think I had the most handle over the situation. I was being pulled left, right. I didn’t really know what was going on.”
That’s the line Chwalinska’s rise now forces everyone to watch. She is six years older than Raducanu was when Raducanu triumphed. and Chwalinska has been in tennis longer — including a difficult chapter that shaped how she thinks about getting out of bed. getting through days. and deciding whether to come back at all. In 2021, she took a break for mental health reasons, saying: “I just couldn’t get out of bed anymore. I was just, like, lifeless, to be honest. I didn’t know if I was going to come back. I’m happy that I did.”.
Her French Open run also contains a kind of tennis realism that makes it feel even more unlikely. It is only the eighth tour-level main draw she has ever played. She never won more than two matches in any of them before this. Before this fortnight, she had never beaten anyone in the top 50. It’s only her third Grand Slam main draw. and she previously had only won one match at Wimbledon four years ago. At Grand Slams, she had been knocked out of qualifying in 13 others, starting at the Australian Open back in 2020.
What’s been on display in Paris, though, has looked like the opposite of a fluke. There was a time when nobody was talking about her the way teenage sensations tend to steal attention at Grand Slams. But Chwalinska’s style has arrived like a language people suddenly understand—sharp, controlled, and intelligent.
She is a self-proclaimed tennis nerd who spent hours watching Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. “I was Roger’s No1 fan,” she said, adding: “Sometimes I come back to these old matches and I watch them play and it feels like poetry.”
On court, the blueprint is chess-like rather than brute force. TNT pundit Mats Wilander put it plainly: “She has touched people’s hearts as she plays a style of tennis that people can understand. She’s played so smart. Tennis is a game of chess, it’s not a game of hitting it harder than each other. You’re trying to move each other around. She plays with spin, drop shots and she really understands the game unbelievably well.”.
The story is built on two rare things: the qualifier reaching the final of Roland Garros and doing it with tennis that looks instinctive in timing and anticipation. It’s also why she now sits in the same conversation as Raducanu—but not because the paths were identical. Raducanu’s shock title came with the kind of global sponsorship stampede that can flatten a young player’s sense of control. Chwalinska is walking into something similar as her prize money triples. her hotel gets paid for. and her shirt fills with logos.
By the time the final starts, the stakes won’t be theoretical. A win would take her to £2,400,000. It would lift her to as high as 14th in the world. It would also turn her run into a defining pivot point.
And the biggest challenge, the one that sits behind everything else, is what comes next—how she keeps her grip on her own future as the sport’s spotlight widens.
Maja Chwalinska French Open final Mirra Andreeva Diana Shnaider Emma Raducanu Roland Garros Oshee XTB Wimbledon wildcard tennis sponsorship Mats Wilander