The tennis world loves a good underdog story and the 2026 French Open has certainly delivered one in Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska, who has made an historic run to the final in Paris.
With just seven tour-level main draw match wins since the start of 2025 heading into this tournament, we take a closer look at the rising star who has battled through the qualifying rounds and gone on to reach the latter stages in the French capital...
Maja Chwalinska Profile
Place of Birth | Dabrowa Gornicza (Poland) |
Date | 11th October 2001 |
Height | 1.64m |
Coach | Jaroslav Machovsky |
WTA ranking | 114 |
Career earnings | $864,030 |
Maja Chwalinska Career
Born in Dabrowa Gornicza in 2001, Chwalinska began playing tennis at a young age and quickly had success.
Her early potential was highlighted by European U14 and U16 doubles titles and a run to the junior Australian Open final at the age of just 16.
She turned professional in 2019, a year that also saw her make her Fed Cup debut with a victory in doubles. In 2020, she reached her first Grand Slam qualifying draw but fell in the first round to Bulgaria's Isabella Shinikova.
The following year brought similar results as she failed to advance to the main draw in Australia, Paris, and Wimbledon. However, Chwalinska was consistently earning her spot in the qualifiers while also capturing her first ITF titles in Bytom, Grodzisk, and Warsaw.
A significant breakthrough came in 2022 when she made her main draw debut at Wimbledon, securing her first Grand Slam match win against Katerina Siniakova. After a couple of challenging years, she ended 2024 on a high note by winning her first WTA 125 title in Florianopolis, Brazil.
In 2025, she lost on her Australian Open main draw debut, but the year proved fruitful, however, as she claimed her second WTA 125 title in Montreux and competed in the qualifying rounds of all four Grand Slams.
The 2026 season began with a near-miss at the Australian Open, where she fell in the final qualifying round.
Two months later, she captured the Oeiras Open title, which propelled her to a career-high WTA ranking of 114.
From there, the 24-year-old headed to Paris and impressively qualified for the French Open main draw for the first time.
An incredible journey in Paris has seen the Pole defeat Olympic gold medallist Qinwen Zheng, number 23 seed Elise Mertens, Maria Sakkari and home favourite Diane Parry to reach the quarter-finals.
Chwalinska was understandably full of confidence heading into the quarter-finals and impressively defeated number 22 seed Anna Kalinskaya 7-6 6-3 on Wednesday to continue her memorable run and earn a place in the last four.
Not content with just reaching the semi-finals, Chwalinska continued to shock the tennis world as she booked a place in Saturday's showpiece final with another terrific display as she defeated Diana Shnaider.
Mirra Andreeva is now the only player who stands in Chwalinska's way of completing a fairytale run and securing a place in the tennis history books forever.
