For the first time since 2022, a teenage athlete has reached the final at Roland Garros. Mila Andreeva, 19, defeated Marta Kostyuk in straight sets (6-1, 6-3) on Thursday to book her ticket to the 2026 French Open final.
Andreeva took control from the start, playing a solid game and taking advantage of Kostyuk’s unforced errors. Andreeva hit two aces in the first set and won 6-1 for a 56 percent win rate on points. It certainly helped that Koszczuk committed 17 unforced errors in the first set.
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Kostyuk showed resilience in the first game of the second set, coming within one point of victory. But in the end, Andreeva came out on top. After winning the next two matches, Andreeva found himself in a similar position in the fourth match. As both players battled for advantage, Kostyuk took the fourth game and earned his first win of the set. Despite the win, they still had a lot of work to do as they were trailing by 1 win and 3 losses.
Kostyuk carried on with that momentum, winning the next two matches and closing the lead on Andreva. In the eighth game of the second set, Andreeva did not score a single point and suddenly looked dangerous for the first time in all sets.
She bounced back in the next match and grabbed the win, putting her one game away from winning the match. Overcoming her previous struggles, Andreeva quickly shook off Kostyuk in the ninth game and won the second set 6-3 to advance.
With this victory, Andreeva reached the final of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career. The 19-year-old, unlike many of her rivals, found success at Roland Garros early in her career, reaching both the quarter-finals and semi-finals in previous years before reaching Thursday’s final. Andreeva enters her match against Kostyuk with a 79 percent winning percentage at Roland Garros, her best result at a Grand Slam.
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The win also marks the first time since 2022 that a teenage player will appear in the French Open final. Coco Gauff was the last to accomplish that feat. In the final that year, he lost to Iga Świętek.
Andreeva continued to win at the French Open, where almost every contender suffered an early defeat. As a result, she will enter the final as the favorite versus upstart Maja Chwalinska, who continued her miraculous run at Roland Garros with a victory over Diana Schneider on Thursday.
Although Andreeva has experienced a lot of success in her young career, she is still searching for her first Grand Slam win. If she can pull it off Saturday, it could mark a changing of the guard in tennis and graduate Andreeva from future star to player who has reached her full potential.
