Mirra Andreeva will contest her first Grand Slam title after a commanding performance in the Roland Garros semifinals. The 19-year-old became the first player this clay season to beat Marta Kostyuk, recording a 6-1, 6-3 victory in Thursday’s opening women’s semifinal.

“The conditions were very tough today. I couldn’t understand which direction the wind was going,” Andreeva told Marion Bartoli on court. “I’m just happy I was able to stay focused. I told myself to accept everything that happens today on the court. It was a little bit unpredictable.”

The result marked Andreeva’s first win in three meetings with Kostyuk; she had lost their previous two encounters, including the Mutua Madrid Open final in May. Drawing on the experience of a 2024 semifinal at this event, the No. 8 seed sprinted to a 4-0 lead and largely maintained control as gusty conditions complicated timing and movement.

Andreeva’s game plan remained composed and precise. Kostyuk was unable to reproduce the form that had driven a 17-match clay winning streak into the major, and at times vented visible frustration. The only clear lapse from Andreeva arrived at 4-2 in the second set when she was broken at love after a double fault and an errant forehand. She recovered immediately, varying pace to force a re-break and then served out the match on her first opportunity.

Statistically, Kostyuk finished with a minus-19 differential between winners and unforced errors, a telling indicator of how the match tilted. Andreeva, contesting her 13th major main draw, is the youngest woman to reach a Grand Slam final in four years, the last being an 18-year-old Coco Gauff at this event.

The Russian leads the tour with 21 clay-court wins and 35 match wins overall this season. She now bids to become the WTA’s third youngest first-time major champion this century behind Maria Sharapova and Emma Raducanu.

© 2026 Franco Arland

Elina Svitolina captured the WTA 1000 title in Rome, defeating Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-2 to claim the biggest trophy of her return as a mother. The victory in the final completed a run that saw Svitolina beat three of the Top 4 players in successive rounds: No. 2 Elena Rybakina in the quarterfinals and No. 3 Iga Swiatek in the semifinals, before overcoming the world No. 4 in the championship match.

Svitolina, the current No. 10, produced a gritty performance in the final. Gauff led 4-2 in the opening set and held break points for 5-2, but Svitolina closed out the set with four straight games. The second set featured 10 consecutive holds before Gauff briefly took a 6-5 lead; Svitolina broke back and the pair reached a tiebreak, which Gauff won after rallying from 3-2 down. In the decider, following three holds to open the set, Svitolina ran off five games in a row to take control and sealed the match with a reflex volley into the open court after two hours and 49 minutes.

This is Svitolina’s third Rome title, adding to her wins in 2017 and 2018, and her fifth WTA 1000 title overall, joining Dubai and Toronto from 2017. Since returning to the tour as a mom in 2023, she had previously won three WTA 250 events: Strasbourg in 2023, Rouen in 2025 and Auckland earlier this year. The Rome victory also marked a milestone 50th Top 10 win for her career. Her record in WTA finals now stands at 20-5.

The Rome trophy is the most significant title won by a mother on tour since Victoria Azarenka’s WTA 1000 victory in Cincinnati in 2020.

World No. 4 Coco Gauff, speaking after her semifinal win over Sorana Cirstea in Rome and ahead of Saturday’s Rome final, said she is open to simplifying tennis scoring. She acknowledged what makes the sport distinctive, noting “literally it’s not over until it’s over” when players must reach and then close out match point.

That said, Gauff singled out the traditional game-score sequence as confusing and in need of change. “The way the games are 15-Love, 30-Love. That doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s so hard to explain that to people,” she told press. “It’s 15, 30, but it goes to 40. Why?

“I don’t know, 1-0, 1-All situation. At least make it incrementally. It should be 45, not 40.”

The suggestion revived a long-standing historical curiosity. Records note that 45 was initially in place during the 1400s, though the shift to 40 lacks a verifiable explanation. The uncertain origins have prompted scholars to offer theories without firm proof.

Elizabeth Wilson, author of Love Game: A History of Tennis, from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon, put the uncertainty plainly: “I don’t think anybody really knows how it started or why it developed how it did. There are various theories, all sorts of romantic theories have been built up about it. That’s partly what makes tennis into a kind of romantic game, because it had all this history that isn’t really history.”

Gauff’s remarks underline a wider conversation about modernizing aspects of the sport while preserving what many consider its unique drama. Her proposal to make scoring strictly incremental is simple in concept and intended to make the games easier to explain to newcomers and casual fans.