Most players walking into the French Open are worried about clay-court footwork or film on their next opponent. Maja Chwalińska was worried about where she was going to sleep.
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The 24-year-old from Poland arrived at Roland Garros this year ranked No. 114 in the world, with no sponsor and no financial cushion. As Sportico reported, she was paying for the whole trip herself, and the math of professional tennis is brutal for someone in her position. Prize money arrives after the tournament, but hotels, travel, and equipment all have to be paid up front. She hadn’t booked a room past the qualifying rounds, because she had no reason to assume she’d still be in Paris.
“I actually struggled to pay for the hotel, because you know that we get the check after the tournament,” Chwalińska said in a press conference, a detail that surfaced almost by accident after one of her wins.
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A sudden upswing
Her mismatched outfits had the same explanation. When a reporter asked about her rotating, brand-jumbled kit, she said there was no story to it beyond the obvious: she didn’t have a clothing sponsor, so she wore what she owned.
But then, she just kept winning. Chwalińska came through three rounds of qualifying and then, in the main draw, beat one higher-ranked player after another. According to CNN, she dropped only a single set across nine matches and knocked out four top-50 opponents on her way through, including a semifinal win over 25th seed Diana Shnaider that put her into the final.
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That result made history. Per stats provider Opta, Chwalińska and Emma Raducanu are the only players, men or women, to reach a Grand Slam singles final straight from the qualifying rounds in the Open Era, which dates back to 1968. Raducanu famously did it at the 2021 US Open, and won the title. Chwalińska’s version ended differently. In Saturday’s final she ran into 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva, the No. 8 seed, who was simply too good on the day and won 6-3, 6-2 for her first major title.
2 – Maja Chwalinska is the second qualifier in the Open Era to reach the Singles final in a Major after Emma Raducanu at the US Open 2021, males included. Unbelievable!#RolandGarros | @rolandgarros@WTApic.twitter.com/lI4xnSDKHz
— OptaAce (@OptaAce) June 4, 2026
She left with more than she’d ever made before
But Chwalińska did not leave Paris the way she arrived. By reaching the final she earned roughly $1.6 million, per CNN, which is more than she had banked in her entire career to that point. Her previous career prize money totaled $864,030, accumulated since she first appeared in a major qualifying draw more than six years ago. One fortnight in Paris nearly tripled it.
Her ranking moved nearly as fast. Tennis365 reported that the run lifted her 93 spots, from No. 114 to No. 21, the kind of jump that changes which tournaments a player can enter and how she travels to them. Help arrived off the court too: the Polish brand Oshee, which also backs world No. 3 Iga Świątek, stepped in to sponsor her during the run.
For her part, Chwalińska seemed to still be catching up with what had happened. “Like a dream, honestly, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to say, sorry,” she said after the semifinal, her face buried in a towel. “Let me enjoy this moment for now.”
The hotel, presumably, is no longer a problem.
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