Andreeva in the Final: Beat Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 in 76 Minutes

A cycle was completed on the clay surface of Paris on Thursday. The 8th seed Mirra Andreeva became the winner this time against Marta Kostyuk, whom she faced for the third time in the last 16 days, and reached the first Grand Slam final of her career at Roland Garros 2026. Andreeva's victory is both a new step in the growth curve of the rising star player and the nature of the rematch of the past Madrid final — Kostyuk had defeated the same opponent 6-3, 7-5 at the WTA 1000 final played in Spain on May 2 and reached the first WTA 1000 victory of her career.

The first set went one-sided. While Andreeva held a high rate of 73% (38/52) in first serve accuracy, Kostyuk could only catch a figure of 51% (33/65). The Ukrainian player's hesitation in her serve became clear from the first points; while Andreeva remained at 2 in double faults, Kostyuk made 4 double faults. Andreeva preferred to commit to the point quickly throughout the first set rather than keeping Kostyuk long in baseline rallies; she collected 32 points in the 1-4 shot category, 4 more than Kostyuk's 28. This statistic actually summarises the main strategy of the match — Andreeva was aggressive on the short point, smart on the long point.

Kostyuk showed a little more resistance in the second set, but Andreeva did not break her rhythm. The Russian tennis player also clearly left Kostyuk behind in the rate of winning the second serve: While Andreeva converted 57% of her second serve to points (8/14), Kostyuk only obtained 34% (11/32) efficiency. This shows Andreeva's ability to construct the game in the rallies developing after the second serve. In the season encounter in Madrid, Kostyuk's strategy of keeping the ball long for minutes had been successful; in Paris Andreeva broke this pattern. In the 5-8 shot range, Andreeva won 25 points, Kostyuk 13 points; the 12-point difference was the backbone statistic of the match.

The last game ending the match was striking. Andreeva hit her second serve of 167 km/h from the deuce side; in the 6-shot baseline rally that followed, Kostyuk's forehand fell behind the baseline. The clock stopped at 1:16:28 at Court Philippe-Chatrier. Neither Andreeva nor Kostyuk did the classic handshake at the net after the match — the standard protocol between Russian and Ukrainian players this season is based on the decision not to shake hands due to the war background. Both players greeted the stands after the match and left.

Kostyuk's Paris nightmare is not just one match result — the Ukrainian player had built a 16-match clay winning streak before Roland Garros, won the Rouen and Madrid clay tournaments. At Roland Garros she had also beaten 4-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek in the 4th round, and in the quarter-final defeated her compatriot Elina Svitolina in 3 sets, staging the first all-Ukrainian GS quarter-final in history. The career statistics of the 23-year-old Ukrainian are ranked as 146 wins, 114 losses; she has 3 WTA singles titles. Even reaching a Grand Slam semi-final this year became a career record.

Andreeva, on the other hand, had opened the season 29-9 and came to the semi-final in Paris with a performance slightly below expectations — however, the 6-0, 6-3 dominance against Sorana Cirstea in the quarter-final showed that the Russian tennis player had returned. Andreeva, reaching her third semi-final at Roland Garros (previously in 2024), passed the last stage this time. 19 years old, 5 WTA singles titles (the latest Adelaide 2026), 117 wins/50 losses figures are extraordinary for an 18-19-year-old athlete. In this generation, Andreeva is taking the strongest position as the new generation star candidate.

Next is Saturday's Roland Garros final match. Andreeva's opponent is not yet clear — the other semi-final is between the 25th seed Diana Shnaider and Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska. Chwalinska became the title of the Cinderella story who started from qualification and reached the first Grand Slam semi-final in her history. The final will be played at 15:00 (local time) on Saturday June 7. If Andreeva wins, at 19 she will become the youngest Roland Garros champion since 2024 Coco Gauff. This year's Roland Garros women's singles final will once again be remembered with the theme of "new generation star".

Image: claytenis.com