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Welcome to the French Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On Day 9, an unlikely quarterfinalist, the beauty of pressure in tennis and a long, slow comeback journey.
How did a qualifier continue her dream run?
If tennis fans are surprised to see 24-year-old Polish player Maja Chwalińska in the quarterfinals, after defeating the last French singles player standing at Roland Garros, they are not alone.
“Well, it’s definitely a big surprise for me, and I didn’t expect it, surely,” Chwalińska said with a smile Monday after defeating Diane Parry.
The world No. 114 came through three rounds of qualifying and has dropped just one set, to 2021 semifinalist Maria Sakkari, en route to her first career Grand Slam quarterfinal. She has far surpassed her previous best run at a major — the second round of Wimbledon in 2022.
She took down the Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen, who was struggling physically, in the first round and upset No. 23 seed Elise Mertens in the second with her heavy topspin and deftness in the forecourt. After beating Sakkari in the third round and Parry, 6-3, 6-2 in the fourth, she is the first qualifier to reach the women’s singles quarterfinals at Roland Garros since Martina Trevisán in 2020.
When she played Parry on Court Philippe-Chatrier, she made sure to take a picture of the plaque for Rafael Nadal that adorns the court first.
“I’m really grateful for this opportunity,” Chwalińska said. “It’s such a beautiful court.
“I knew coming in that it’s going to be a very tough match, you know, with the French crowd, as well, but they were very respectful, I think. They supported Diane, but me as well. I was very grateful for that.”
Chwalińska isn’t one to take for granted the chance to play on one of tennis’ biggest stages. She took a mental health sabbatical from the sport in 2021 to manage a period of depression, and as a player outside the top 100, has had to deal this week with the logistical realities of an unexpected run in an expensive city.
After her second-round match, she mentioned in her on-court interview that she was struggling to pay for a hotel in Paris because players don’t get paid — she’ll make just under $550,000 for reaching the quarterfinals — until after the tournament.
She said later that the Polish company Oshee, which sponsors her compatriot and friend Iga Świątek, stepped up to help her out with accommodations. Chwalińska is hoping to extend her reservation at least a few more nights — she’ll face No. 22 seed Anna Kalinskaya next.
— Ava Wallace
How did two matches underscore the beauty of pressure?
If anybody needed a reminder of how different tennis is mentally when a player is ahead compared to behind, two fourth-round matches delivered Monday. First, Russia’s Kalinskaya and Russian-turned-Austrian Anastasia Potapova provided an exhibition in the afternoon.
This was one of those matches when whoever was ahead would tighten up, and whoever was behind would relax and find their range, right up until Kalinskaya, the No. 22 seed, finally hauled herself over the line, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(10-7).
In the first set, the No. 28 seed Potapova started well and moved to a 4-1 lead. Then she promptly lost five straight games. to lose it 6-4.
After Potapova won the second set in straightforward fashion, they moved into a decider. In the third set, Potapova went up a break three times, only to give it straight back each time — including twice when serving for the match. In between all that, Kalinskaya led 4-1, before she too got tight and gave up four straight games. Once into the tiebreak, it almost felt as though whoever went ahead would be at a disadvantage, and sure enough Potapova led 3-0 and 4-2 but faltered again with the finish line in sight.
“It was a very mental match for both,” Potapova said in a news conference afterward. “Obviously it seems like for both of us it’s easier to play when you’re loose, because you kind of relax your body, and you just kind of let it go, and you don’t think about it.”
Kalinskaya has also had her issues in that regard, not just on Monday. She has never won a WTA title, and in the Berlin Ladies Open final two years ago, she missed five championship points before losing to Jessica Pegula. She joked in her on-court interview after beating her good friend Potapova that she had tried staying cool in the clutch moments, but had more less abandoned that policy as it clearly wasn’t working.
“I was definitely nervous,” she said in a news conference.
“The match was very physical. I felt like in third set I was up in the score 4-1. Then I saw she was a bit tired. At 4-1 I started to run out of energy to finish the match, and she was coming back, so that’s why the score was up and down a lot.”
Kalinskaya next faces the world No. 114 Maja Chwalińska, in what is a huge opportunity to reach a first ever major semifinal — and the kind of pressure she could do without. Especially if she builds an early lead.
Later, Matteo Arnaldi and Frances Tiafoe took to the court.
More than five hours later, after Tiafoe played a match he may have nightmares about for some time, and Arnaldi looked like he had lost the match three times over, the Italian was standing at the microphone in the middle of Court Suzanne-Lenglen in a state of disbelief.
For more than two hours, it looked like Tiafoe wouldn’t make much of a stand against Italy’s Arnaldi, even as he knotted their match at 1-1. Then all of a sudden, with Tiafoe leading 4-1 in the fourth set, it looked as if he was going to be able to find his way over the finish line and make the Roland Garros quarterfinals.
No such luck. Arnaldi turned into some version of Carlos Alcaraz, scrambling all over the court, making miracle saves and darting winners down the line. He hoisted lobs that landed on the baseline and sideline, dug out drop shots deep to the back of the court and lamped backhands down the line. Tiafoe got tight, playing with his food a little too much and encouraging Arnaldi to surge.
Serving for the match at 5-4 in the fourth, Tiafoe went up 30-0, then lost five of the next six points to let Arnaldi burst back to even. The tiebreak started and ended with a double-fault. and off to the fifth set they went.
Tiafoe was on his heels from the start, and Arnaldi got to 4-2. Tiafoe broke back and blasted his way to 4-4. But in the very next game, he was down 0-30 after slipping and getting caked with clay.
This time there was no escape. Arnaldi broke him at love. Tiafoe slammed his racket on his bag over and over. And it was Arnaldi standing at the microphone, declaring his 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-4 win the best five hours and 26 minutes of his life.
— Charlie Eccleshare
How did Matteo Berrettini write a new story?
Few of the many unlikely success stories at this year’s French Open have been as heartwarming as Matteo Berrettini’s.
There aren’t many players who have been as cruelly struck down by injury and denied their prime years like him. Now 30, Berrettini reached the Wimbledon final five years ago and won the first set against Novak Djokovic. He ended up losing in four, but a year later, he looked like he might be in a position to go one better after winning the prestigious Queen’s warm-up event for the second year running. But in a sign of things to come, Berrettini tested positive for Covid-19 and withdrew on the morning of his first-round match.
Berrettini had reached a career-high ranking of No. 6 five months earlier, but over the course of 2022 required surgery for ankle and wrist injuries, and has since been plagued by stomach and abdominal issues.
The constant setbacks have been a major factor in why reaching the French Open quarterfinals with a straight-sets win over Juan Manuel Cerúndolo Monday was Berrettini’s first appearance in the last eight of a major since the 2022 Australian Open. He came into the French Open ranked No. 107, and no one was expecting anything from him; now he is in the last eight.
If doing it with his injury history is a huge achievement, then recovering sufficiently to beat Cerúndolo after a five-hour-and-16-minute epic against Francisco Comesaña in the previous round was truly remarkable, even considering that Cerúndolo had played an even longer match of five hours and 57 minutes in his third round against Martín Landaluce of Spain.
In any case, there was Berrettini, blasting trademark forehands and recovering from a break down in the third set and then 6-3 in the tiebreak to win five straight points and surge for the finish line.
After a 6-3, 7-6(2), 7-6(6) win, he said in his on-court interview that tennis was “the love of my life.”
“There were moments when it was really tough to go back and hit the ball because I wasn’t ready,” Berrettini said.
He’s looked ready in Paris, and next up faces either his compatriot Matteo Arnaldi or the No. 19 seed Frances Tiafoe at the stage of a Slam he must have thought he’d never reach again.
— Charlie Eccleshare
Other notable results on Day 9:
Aryna Sabalenka (1) outplayed Naomi Osaka (16) for a 7-5, 6-3 win during the first night session to feature a women’s match since 2023.
Flavio Cobolli (10) shrugged off his first dropped set of the tournament to defeat Zachary Svajda of the U.S. 6-2, 6-3, 6-7(3), 7-6(5). The Italian is into his second Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Diana Shnaider (25) delivered Australian Open champion Madison Keys (19) a final-set bagel. The Russian moved into her first Grand Slam quarterfinal with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 win.
Félix Auger-Aliassime (4) completed the set of major quarterfinals. The Canadian defeated Alejandro Tabilo of Chile 6-3, 7-5, 6-1.
Shot of the day
Arnaldi of Italy did not just come back to stun Tiafoe 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-4. He also got this stunning exchange in his memory bank:
Drop Shots
🐐 Serena Williams is coming back to tennis. The 23-time Grand Slam champion will start with a doubles wild card into Queen’s, the Wimbledon warm-up event in London.
💰 Paraguayan player Adolfo Daniel Vallejo was fined $65,000 for saying that a female umpire wasn’t strong enough to officiate his second-round match. He lost.
🌟 Naomi Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka’s fourth-round duel was all about star power.
🇪🇸 Rafael Jódar, who meets tournament favorite Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals, is upending the way tennis thinks about Spanish players on clay.
🔬 The relationship between electronic line calling and line judges on clay continues to confuse players and fans — partly because broadcasters don’t know how to explain it.
Up next: Quarterfinals
🎾 Women’s singles: Mirra Andreeva (8) vs. Sorana Cîrstea (18)
5 a.m. ET on TNT, HBO Max
Another test of Andreeva’s credentials as a favorite at the French Open, 12 months after the pressure of the same status caused her to unravel on Court Philippe-Chatrier against French wild card Loïs Boisson. Cîrstea, the 36-year-old having the season of her life, which she also plans to be her last, has been swinging freely all year and will be a dangerous opponent. For Andreeva, 18, it’s all about playing aggressive tennis when ahead and expected to win, instead of when behind.
🎾 Women’s singles: Elina Svitolina (7) vs. Marta Kostyuk (15)
7 a.m. ET on TNT, HBO Max
This duel between two Ukrainians, which will guarantee a first women’s semifinalist from the country at the French Open, is also a duel between the two best clay-court players on the WTA this year. Kostyuk, 23, is 16-0 on clay in 2026. She won the WTA 1000 Madrid Open in April, before Svitolina, 31, won the Italian Open, at the same level, in May. That completed a Ukrainian sweep of two most prestigious clay events before the French Open. Late afternoon in Paris Monday, one of the two will have an opportunity to get to the final of the biggest one of all.
🎾 Men’s singles: Rafael Jódar (27) vs. Alexander Zverev (3)
9 a.m. ET on TNT, HBO Max
Zverev, the 29-year-old three-time Grand Slam finalist, is three wins away from the major title that has so far eluded him — and he will not have to play Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner in any of them. He will have to play under all kinds of pressure — being the top seed, possibly not getting such a chance again — and he will have to play Jódar. The fearless 19-year-old Spaniard, who can crack a groundstroke on both sides and sweep forward at will, has the tennis to make Zverev’s life very uncomfortable. The German will need to use his major experience, in a big way and for the first time this tournament.
🎾 Men’s singles: Jakub Menšík (26) vs. João Fonseca (28)
Not before 2:15 p.m. ET on TNT
Menšík, 20, and Fonseca, 19, join Jódar as the youngest and most fizzingly exciting players in the men’s field — and one of them has to exit here. Fonseca has proved his big-time bona fides by beating Novak Djokovic (in five sets) and Casper Ruud back to back, while Menšík has come through cramps and heat exhaustion while hitting his forehand with more authority and power than any other time in his career. Their night session should be sublime.
French Open women’s draw 2026
French Open men’s draw 2026
Tell us what you noticed on the eighth day…
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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