Mirra Andreeva wins French Open to deny Maja Chwalinska fairytale ending

Maja Chwalinska could not apply the fairytale ending to her French Open Cinderella story as teenager Mirra Andreeva claimed her first grand slam title.

The 19-year-old’s 6-3 6-2 victory makes her the youngest women’s champion in Paris since Monica Seles back in 1992 and the first Russian to win a major singles trophy since the invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

While the political landscape will make this a difficult triumph to cheer for many, there is no doubt Andreeva, who lives and trains in France, is a phenomenal talent and a worthy slam champion.

When a final winner landed in the corner, Andreeva, who is also the first Russian female grand slam singles champion since Maria Sharapova here in 2014, dropped to her knees in celebration.

Attention ahead of the match had understandably been dominated by the remarkable run from qualifying to the final of 24-year-old Pole Chwalinska, who had the vast majority of the crowd support.

Nine successive victories put her one win away from matching Emma Raducanu’s unprecedented achievement in New York in 2021.

Chwalinska is no teenage dreamer, though, having battled away on the lower reaches of the tour for years, including struggling with depression, without ever making the top 100 or beating a top-50 player.

She arrived in Paris in good form but not even in her most fanciful moments could she have imagined how things would play out over the next three weeks.

Four successive victories over top-50 players, including Andreeva’s doubles partner Diana Shnaider in the last four, made Chwalinska at 114 in the world the lowest-ranked finalist since the inception of the rankings in 1975.

She will climb to 21 on Monday, and Wimbledon organisers will look churlish in the extreme if they