Mirra Andreeva is a Grand Slam champion. The Russian teenager, ranked eighth in the world, defeated Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska 6-3, 6-2 in the Roland Garros women’s singles final on Saturday to claim the first major title of her career. At 19, she becomes the youngest player to win the French Open women’s singles since Monica Seles lifted the trophy at 18 in 1992.
When Andreeva’s backhand cross-court winner landed on match point, she dropped to her knees on the clay. The moment was four years in the making — she first announced herself to the world as a 15-year-old at the 2023 Madrid Open, becoming the third-youngest player to win a main-draw match at a WTA 1000 tournament and reaching the quarterfinals. That version of Andreeva was already considered a future Grand Slam contender. The version who walked onto Court Philippe-Chatrier on Saturday proved it.
Chwalinska, ranked 114th and attempting to become the first qualifier to win Roland Garros, was a remarkable story in her own right. The crowd packed into the stadium was largely Polish, with red and white flags held aloft as fans chanted her name. She had a genuine chance in the first set before Andreeva found a way through the wind and an answer to her array of spins and drop shots.
A Champion Who Thanked Herself
The trophy presentation produced one of the more memorable speeches in recent Grand Slam history. Andreeva made the unusual decision to thank herself — directly, without apology — for believing in her own ability through what she described as two of the most internally turbulent weeks of her career.
“Only I know how tough it was for me. How nervous I was throughout these two weeks,” she said. She thanked 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, fighting so many demons inside of me.”
Chwalinska, to her credit, delivered the line of the ceremony with warmth and grace: “You’re so young and talented. It’s so annoying.”
Andreeva has competed under neutral status throughout the tournament, without her country’s flag, amid ongoing restrictions on Russian athletes due to the war in Ukraine. When she beat Marta Kostyuk in the semifinals, her opponent declined the post-match handshake — a stance Ukrainian players have maintained when facing Russian competitors since the conflict began in 2022. Andreeva navigated all of it and won anyway.
Her coach, Conchita Martinez, lost the 2000 French Open final. Her former opponent on the biggest stage, Mary Pierce, was present at Saturday’s ceremony to hand Andreeva the trophy. The Roland Garros circle was closed on Saturday in the best way possible.
The men’s final between Alexander Zverev and Flavio Cobolli takes place on Sunday, bringing down the curtain on what has been described as one of the wildest Grand Slams in recent memory — defined most memorably by the shock second-round elimination of world number one Jannik Sinner.
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