Mirra Andreeva stormed past Marta Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 in the French Open semi-finals on Thursday to reach her first Grand Slam final. The 19-year-old Russian became the fourth-youngest French Open finalist in the past 30 years, putting herself in company with Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters and Coco Gauff.
For Kostyuk, 23, the match carried a weight that went far beyond a place in the final. Her tournament had begun 11 days earlier, when she woke to news that a Russian missile had landed about 100m from her family home in Ukraine, where her mother, sister and great aunt were staying. By the time she walked onto court in Paris, the backdrop to the semi-final was already impossible to ignore, and the search around Conchita Martinez reflected how much this draw had become about more than tennis.
The numbers alone explained why Andreeva’s run mattered. She had already beaten Kostyuk in the Madrid Open final earlier in the clay-court season, and she repeated that result in cleaner, sharper fashion in Paris to move one step from a major title. After the match, Kostyuk did not shake Andreeva’s hand. Andreeva, sensing that, slowed her walk to the net so the two would not arrive there at the same time.
The emotional edge to the evening was not new. Kostyuk had said after receiving ovations following her quarter-final against fellow Ukrainian Elina Svitolina that she would carry that moment with her forever, and she argued that players on the world stage cannot claim to have no influence. She also said she wanted a clearer stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine from players, saying she could not understand how someone could sleep peacefully while the war continued and remain silent about it.
Andreeva, meanwhile, has been trying to strip the noise away. She said she had been working on being more calm and positive, and that she felt she had recently tried too many different things before finding what was working best for her. That steadiness showed in the scoreline, even as the political context made the semi-final feel unlike a routine clay-court match. The only major question left is whether that composure will carry her through one more round, against an opponent the draw has not yet revealed.
