The China Mail - Chwalinska, the 'tennis freak' making Roland Garros history

Now ahead of Saturday's French Open final against Mirra Andreeva, the 24-year-old Chwalinska stands on the brink of the pantheon of Roland Garros champions as she bids to become the first player in the Open era to win the clay-court Grand Slam after coming through qualifying to reach the main draw.

"I feel like I'm in the bubble, I would say. I don't know what's going on. I'm just very happy to be here," Chwalinska told reporters after becoming the first qualifier to reach the final at Roland Garros in the professional era.

"I just try to focus on every single match, give my all, and then after the tournament, there will be time to kind of process it and breathe in, breathe out."

Lifting the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen would also make her just the second qualifier to win a major since professionalisation in 1968, equalling Emma Raducanu's exploits in New York five years ago.

But if the then-teenaged Briton had already made somewhat of a name for herself prior to winning the US Open by making it to the second week of Wimbledon two months earlier, Chwalinska has come from a lot further back to attain major glory.

"Let's not pretend someone expected it," the world number 114 admitted.

"I mean, I was outside (the) top 100, and now I'm in the finals of a Grand Slam, so I feel like it's a big thing. So it's hard to process it, I guess."

- 'Struggling a lot' -

Born on the outskirts of Katowice on October 11, 2001, Chwalinska was considered a top Polish prospect as a youth but was always overshadowed by her compatriot and now six-time major winner Iga Swiatek.

According to the WTA, they both began their professional careers at the same ITF event in Poland in 2015, and secured their first professional victories at the ITF event in Torun the following year.

In 2017, Chwalinska and Swiatek lost the Australian Open girls' doubles final.

After that, their career trajectories went in two wildly different directions.

Chwalinska has mostly toiled in lower-level tournaments, only twice before this year qualifying for the main draw of a Grand Slam.

In 2021, Chwalinska battled with depression and took a break from tennis.

"The break wasn't very tough," she said. "The tough moments were before the break, I would say. I was struggling a lot."

She revealed that at first she thought she "just needed to stay very strong, tough, and just keep practising".

But that eventually, she felt "lifeless" and "couldn't get out of bed anymore".

Chwalinska recovered and returned to action, but her ranking had dropped to No. 346.

However, the self-proclaimed tennis obsessive revealed that her love for the sport has never diminished despite the travails of the tour.

"I love watching tennis. And when I was younger, I watched tennis, like, all day every day," she said.

"I'm a tennis freak a bit."

Growing up, Chwalinska's favourite player was Roger Federer, but she also held a place in her heart for the Swiss' 'Big Three' rivals, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

"I'm just actually very grateful that I was growing up during this era," she said. "And sometimes I come back to these old matches and I watch them play, and it feels like poetry, really."

Chwalinska even admitted to taking a picture of 14-time Roland Garros champion Nadal's plaque on Court Philippe Chatrier during the warm-up before her first match on the French Open showpiece court against Diane Parry in the fourth round.

Throughout the tournament in Paris, she has worn numerous different outfits as she is "not sponsored" and revealed that a Polish company has even had to step in "to help me to cover my hotel expenses these three weeks", but all that will soon change for her.

Chwalinska has already more than doubled her career prize money of $864,030 by reaching the final, with 1.4 million euros ($1.63 million) on offer for the runner-up, and 2.8 million euros ($3.26 million) going to the winner.

And now the player, whose "main goal" at the start of 2026 was to break into the top 100, will climb to at least No. 21 in the WTA rankings and can be expected to be seen much more regularly on tennis' biggest stages.

Z.Ma--ThChM