Kimberly Birrell knocked out Jessica Pegula 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the opening round at Roland Garros on Day 3, a 1 hour and 41 minute victory that sent the 83rd-ranked Australian through to the second round and out of one of the draw’s biggest names. Pegula, the No. 5 seed and World No. 5, took the first set and led by a break before Birrell turned the match around.
Birrell said she did not really know what to say or think after the win, and added that when she saw the draw she knew the match would be extremely difficult. She said she admired Pegula as a player and a person, tried to take it one point at a time and aimed first just to win a game and build confidence. By the end, she said she was happy to have played what felt like probably the best match of her career on clay, and to do it in a Grand Slam at Roland Garros made it feel especially meaningful.
The result was a breakthrough for Birrell, who won her first career match in Paris and her first Grand Slam match outside the Australian Open. Before this week, she had never won a match at Roland Garros, and her best previous major result was a third-round run in Melbourne in 2019. She had also won only two career Top 10 matches before this tournament, both in Brisbane: over Daria Kasatkina in 2018 and Emma Navarro in 2024. Those wins came on home soil, which made this one in Paris a different test entirely.
For Pegula, the loss broke a run of steady results in the French capital. She had reached at least the third round in each of her previous four appearances in Paris and had been beaten in the first round of a Grand Slam only once in the past five years, in back-to-back exits in 2019 and 2020. That made Birrell’s comeback sharper in context: she trailed by a set and a break, yet held her nerve long enough to take control of the match and close it out in straight sets from there.
Birrell now faces Oleksandra Oliynykova if she is to match her best previous major result. Oliynykova advanced by beating qualifier Elena Pridankina in what was her first-ever French Open win, setting up a second-round path that will show whether Birrell’s performance against Pegula was a one-day upset or the start of a deeper Paris run.
