French wildcard Lois Boisson makes history at Roland Garros with semi-final spot
Lois Boisson drank in her French Open fairytale after becoming the first wildcard to reach the semi-finals – and then planned an even more glorious encore.
The 22-year-old Frenchwoman, ranked 361 in the world, followed up her win over third seed Jessica Pegula with a 7-6 (6) 6-3 victory over Russian world number six Mirra Andreeva.
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Boisson dropped to the clay with her hands over her eyes in emotional scenes on a packed, ecstatic Court Philippe-Chatrier.
'I'm just proud of myself, because it was really tough for me to go into the semi-final,' she said.
'Every match was really tough, so I'm just proud about how it ends every time. And proud about what I do on the court.'
Boisson's earnings from the year so far were £15,000, and she has now pocketed £580,000 for her fortnight's work in Paris.
Her run has echoes of Emma Raducanu's charge through qualifying to win the US Open in 2021.
If she goes on to win it, it would be even more unbelievable, as Raducanu was at least on the radar having reached the fourth round at Wimbledon before her New York triumph.
Mirra Andreeva suffered in the second set (Jon Buckle/PA)
And Boisson, who faces second seed Coco Gauff for a place in the final, freely admits she is dreaming of claiming the title.
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'I think every kid who plays tennis has the dream to win a slam. More for French player to win Roland Garros, for sure,' she added.
'So, yeah, it's a dream. For sure I will go for the dream, because my dream is to win it, not to be in the semi-final. So I will try to do my best for it.'
It was all too much for Russian 18-year-old Andreeva, who had two set points in the first but suffered a complete meltdown in the second.
She told the crowd to 'shut up', received a code violation for whacking a ball into the stands, burst into tears and shouted at members of her coaching team to leave.
Andreeva said: 'I think that the way I managed to kind of not react to anything in the first set – I think that if I would have been able to do this throughout the whole match, would have been great.'
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Boisson had suffered a career-threatening ACL injury before what was supposed to be her debut here last year and spent nine months recovering.
She had won just one Tour-level match before Roland Garros, against Harriet Dart whose unpleasant comment that her opponent needed to wear deodorant must now be eating away at the British player this fortnight.
Boisson is projected to rise to 65 in the WTA rankings, which would place her above Dart.
Gauff had earlier scrapped her way past her fellow American Madison Keys, the seventh seed, 6-7 (6) 6-4 6-1.
The 21-year-old faces arguably an even bigger test on Thursday against an inspired Boisson and 15,000 raucous Parisians on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
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'I think there are two ways I have done it in the past,' said Gauff. 'Either, A, just pretend they're cheering for you, or B, just using it and not letting that get to you.
'I think it's just something that I will mentally prepare for if it were to happen and expect and be ready for.'
Boisson had spent the morning hitting with none other than men's top seed Jannik Sinner.
It seemed to do both the world of good, with Italian Sinner dispatching Alexander Bublik in straight sets.
The Kazakh, who knocked out Jack Draper on Monday, was beaten 6-1 7-5 6-0.
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