World No. 114 Maja ChwaliÅska turned the 2026 French Open into the most unlikely Grand Slam final run since Emma Raducanu, pushing through qualifying, eliminating Aryna Sabalenka’s conqueror, and arriving at Saturday’s championship match against Mirra Andreeva without ever having beaten a top-50 player before Paris.
She is the first women’s qualifier in French Open history to reach the final. A knee surgery, a ranking that sank to No. 523, and a two-year battle with depression all framed what brought her here. Before this fortnight, her career earnings totaled $864,030. Her guaranteed prize for reaching the final alone: $1,624,000.
ChwaliÅska’s Polish Roots and Family
ChwaliÅska was born in Miechów, Poland, and raised in DÄ browa Górnicza, an industrial city in the country’s coal-mining south. She started playing tennis at age 7, inspired by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic, and won a world championship with the Polish national junior team.
In 2017, the 15-year-old reached the Australian Open girls’ doubles final alongside Iga ÅwiÄ tek â the future four-time Roland Garros champion. Their careers diverged sharply after that. ChwaliÅska’s father, Tomasz ChwaliÅski, would later admit he almost missed the illness that was quietly consuming his daughter.
She Battled With Depression for 2 Years
For two years, ChwaliÅska fought depression that deepened with each match.
“The tennis court is the place where I experienced the most wonderful, but also the saddest, moments of my life,” she told DzieÅ Dobry TVN. “There was no training session when I didn’t cry.”
Even her father didn’t see the severity coming.
“We didn’t notice she was unhappy on court,” Tomasz ChwaliÅski said. “We noticed she was overworked, that she wasn’t smiling.” After two years, she stepped away for roughly four months, uncertain she would return.
“I just thought I was hopeless,” she said. “You’re simply a human being, tennis is tennis.”
An Unprecedented Path Through the 2026 French Open Draw
ChwaliÅska worked through three qualifying matches before the main draw, then defeated Zheng Qinwen, No. 23 seed Elise Mertens, Maria Sakkari, Diane Parry, and Anna Kalinskaya in succession. In the semifinals, she beat Diana Shnaider â who had just eliminated world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka â 7-6(4), 6-4, according to Tennis.com.
“I mean, like a dream, honestly. I don’t know what’s going on,” she said on court afterward. She finished with 32 winners against 17 unforced errors in that semifinal.
She Calls Her Playing Style ‘Annoying’
At 5-foot-5, ChwaliÅska built her game on slice, spin, and drop shots â a style she acknowledged is “very annoying for other players.” Away from the court, she plays chess and enforces a strict rule: one celebratory post per victory, then the phone goes away. Oshee, ÅwiÄ tek’s Polish sponsor, stepped in to cover her Paris hotel costs mid-tournament, according to The Athletic‘s Ava Wallace.
What a Win Would Mean to Her
A top-25 WTA ranking is assured regardless of Saturday’s result â a guaranteed outcome for a player who entered the week at No. 114. If ChwaliÅska defeats No. 8 seed Mirra Andreeva in the June 7 final, a projected ranking of No. 14 awaits, according to Sports Illustrated‘s Brigid Kennedy.
The prize money transformation is equally striking. Her $1,624,000 payout for reaching the final already surpasses her entire prior career earnings â nearly doubling a total she spent years accumulating on the ITF circuit and at WTA 125 events.
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