Latest news with #ROLANDGARROS
New York Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Lois Boisson reaches French Open semifinals with stunning win over Mirra Andreeva
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — The Loïs Boisson fairytale continues in Paris, with the world No. 361 becoming the first woman in 35 years to reach the semifinal at their first ever Grand Slam. Boisson has been upsetting the odds all fortnight, and on Wednesday she bridged a rankings gap of 355 places to defeat the No. 6 seed Mirra Andreeva 7-6(6), 6-3. She is the first Frenchwoman into the semifinals here since Marion Bartoli, in 2011. Advertisement This time a year ago, Boisson, 22, was beginning nine months of rehabilitation after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee on the eve of Roland Garros. Boisson had been given a wild card for the French Open, but suffered the injury a week before at a minor tournament in Paris. Boisson didn't even watch the major on television. And while this may have be her first ever Grand Slam, it was her opponent, four years younger but far more experienced at this level, who unravelled under the Chatrier roof. Andreeva was given a warning in the second set for smashing a ball up towards the roof, and asked for one of her team members to leave. Playing against a home player can scramble a player's mind, and Andreeva was spinning in the Roland Garros washing machine. But this was Boisson's day. A performance of courage and technical excellence against one of the best players in the world, just two days after eliminating the world No. 3 Jessica Pegula and when a letdown following that would have been entirely understandable. Expected even. The early indications were that Boisson's French Open story might have peaked with that Pegula win. She was matching Andreeva, but the Russian just had that little bit more nous, her backhand down the line especially devastating. But after Boisson saved a set point on her own serve down 5-3, she started to hit with more freedom, bringing her hugely powerful forehand more into play. In two separate games, Boisson hit inside-in forehand winners in three out of four points, as she broke back for 5-5 and saved another Andreeva set point in the ensuing tiebreak with a lob that landed on the line and drew a missed forehand. Two points later, after another missed Andreeva forehand, Boisson was a set to the good. Andreeva whacked a ball away in anger, while Boisson put her finger to her ear and asked for even more noise. Advertisement Chatrier, half-empty at the start, was close to full now, and it had become a pressure cooker. Andreeva broke early in the second set but she was quickly reeled back in, and she was rapidly losing her cool. With Boisson serving down 3-2, Andreeva gestured toward her box as if asking someone to leave the stadium. It was the next game that saw her rocket a ball into the top tier of the stadium after missing a routine volley. The crowd, already trying to disrupt the match in Boisson's favor, erupted in a chorus of boos that took up every last bit of air in the stadium. On the next point, an Andreeva forehand was called in but then overruled by the umpire, followed by a double fault to give up the break to fall 3-4 down. Boisson sensed her moment and reeled off the next couple of games, saving a break point in the process. When one last howitzer forehand drew a missed Andreeva backhand, Boisson collapsed to her back as she celebrated one of the most extraordinary Glad Slam runs in tennis history.
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Coco Gauff beats Madison Keys to reach French Open semifinals
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — With a display that epitomized her relentlessness on the biggest stages, Coco Gauff knocked Madison Keys out of the French Open. In a contest of who could keep the ball on the court the most, Gauff was better when she needed to be, toppling the Australian Open champion 6-7(6) 6-4, 6-2 to reach her third Roland Garros semifinal. Advertisement The two American title hopefuls, nearly a decade apart in age but seemingly destined to battle not just each other, but the promise they've long carried through their careers, did not play a beautiful match. Instead, this was a two-part test. Gauff and Keys both had to overcome a tough-as-nails opponent. They also had to overcome two hours and 11 minutes in which both players struggled to summon their best tennis. What unfolded was a pendulum swing between the two qualities that have made them factors at this stage of majors: Keys' preternatural calm under pressure and Gauff's preternatural ability to stay in any match, no matter the momentum. Keys surged to an early lead as Gauff kept shooting for the lines and missing. Twenty minutes after the first ball, Keys was serving at 4-1 and it looked like she was going to cruise through the first set. Then Gauff stopped firing at the lines, widening her margins and trying to make Keys move just a little. It worked, passing the error bug onto Keys' racket. Five games later, Keys had to save a set point on her serve. Advertisement And that's when Keys managed to do the thing every player dreams of doing – playing a perfect point exactly when she needed to. She followed a big first serve with a bigger forehand winner and escaped danger. There was more of that in the tiebreak, with Gauff looking like she was in control, but Keys freeing up to win six of the final eight points, cracking a big first serve to seal it on her second chance. The second set was the opposite of the first, with Gauff surging out to a lead on the strength of Keys' errors, than losing her form and her 4-1, double-service break lead. She found her control of the ball just in time, breaking Keys with some deft slicing to move ahead 5-4, and then watching Keys make errors on three consecutive returns to send the match to a deciding set. 'I just knew I had to be able to run today and when the ball came short punish her for it,' Gauff said on court. With the stage set for a similar tussle to decide the match, Keys returned to the court apparently struggling to shake the idea that her best chance might have slipped away. Just when Gauff had looked like she was going to slip off a cliff, Keys had thrown her a rope, and now Gauff sensed she could use it to reel Keys in. Advertisement Keys gave Gauff an early break with an error-strewn game. Gauff, her serve jitters easing and her first-ball percentage climbing toward 60 percent, seized another 4-1 lead with a big looping backhand onto a deep stretch of sideline that Keys couldn't handle. Unlike the first two sets, that double-break looked secure, rather than vulnerable. Now the only question was whether she could deal with the adversity once more. She did, playing high-margin tennis and not allowing Keys to think a wobble was just a few bad swings away, as it had been throughout the match. Gauff got to match point with a nifty short slice forehand and an easy down the line pass, then sealed it with one more steady rally that ended with her watching Keys send a last forehand long. She will play world No. 6 Mirra Andreeva or French wild card Loïs Boisson in the semifinals. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Tennis, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
New York Times
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Coco Gauff beats Madison Keys to reach French Open semifinals
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — With a display that epitomized her relentlessness on the biggest stages, Coco Gauff knocked Madison Keys out of the French Open. In a contest of who could keep the ball on the court the most, Gauff was better when she needed to be, toppling the Australian Open champion 6-7(6) 6-4, 6-2 to reach her third Roland Garros semifinal. Advertisement The two American title hopefuls, nearly a decade apart in age but seemingly destined to battle not just each other, but the promise they've long carried through their careers, did not play a beautiful match. Instead, this was a two-part test. Gauff and Keys both had to overcome a tough-as-nails opponent. They also had to overcome two hours and 11 minutes in which both players struggled to summon their best tennis. What unfolded was a pendulum swing between the two qualities that have made them factors at this stage of majors: Keys' preternatural calm under pressure and Gauff's preternatural ability to stay in any match, no matter the momentum. Keys surged to an early lead as Gauff kept shooting for the lines and missing. Twenty minutes after the first ball, Keys was serving at 4-1 and it looked like she was going to cruise through the first set. Then Gauff stopped firing at the lines, widening her margins and trying to make Keys move just a little. It worked, passing the error bug onto Keys' racket. Five games later, Keys had to save a set point on her serve. And that's when Keys managed to do the thing every player dreams of doing – playing a perfect point exactly when she needed to. She followed a big first serve with a bigger forehand winner and escaped danger. There was more of that in the tiebreak, with Gauff looking like she was in control, but Keys freeing up to win six of the final eight points, cracking a big first serve to seal it on her second chance. The second set was the opposite of the first, with Gauff surging out to a lead on the strength of Keys' errors, than losing her form and her 4-1, double-service break lead. She found her control of the ball just in time, breaking Keys with some deft slicing to move ahead 5-4, and then watching Keys make errors on three consecutive returns to send the match to a deciding set. Advertisement With the stage set for a similar tussle to decide the match, Keys returned to the court apparently struggling to shake the idea that her best chance might have slipped away. Just when Gauff had looked like she was going to slip off a cliff, Keys had thrown her a rope, and now Gauff sensed she could use it to reel Keys in. Keys gave Gauff an early break with an error-strewn game. Gauff, her serve jitters easing and her first-ball percentage climbing toward 60 percent, seized another 4-1 lead with a big looping backhand onto a deep stretch of sideline that Keys couldn't handle. Unlike the first two sets, that double-break looked secure, rather than vulnerable. Now the only question was whether she could deal with the adversity once more. She did, playing high-margin tennis and not allowing Keys to think a wobble was just a few bad swings away, as it had been throughout the match. Gauff got to match point with a nifty short slice forehand and an easy down the line pass, then sealed it with one more steady rally that ended with her watching Keys send a last forehand long. She will play world No. 6 Mirra Andreeva or French wild card Loïs Boisson in the semifinals.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lois Boisson's stunning French Open run, one year after Roland Garros heartache
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — One year ago, Loïs Boisson had her tennis dream dashed. After tearing through the third rung of professional women's tennis, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) awarded Boisson a wild card for the French Open. A week before, at a minor tournament in Paris, Boisson tore her anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee and missed nine months of tennis. She didn't even watch the tournament on television. Advertisement Twelve months after the pain, Boisson was on Court Philippe-Chatrier, soaking in the adoration of a French crowd. She upset Jessica Pegula, the world No. 3, to reach the French Open quarterfinals. She is the first French woman to reach the last eight at Roland Garros since Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in 2017, after beating Pegula 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. 'I don't know what to say,' Boisson told the crowd in French on court. 'I knew before the match that there was a possibility, but I knew that she was very tough … I gave my all and in the end I won.' Boisson is the world No. 361, 358 places below Pegula, and she looked a little overawed by the occasion in the first set, as Pegula's relentless accuracy and consistency from the baseline ground her down and drew her into mistakes. Boisson couldn't read the American's drop shots and was often scrambling to no avail after being pushed further and further to the back of the court. But Boisson did not wilt, and the slow filling-up of the lower bowl of Chatrier was a barometer for how she worked her way into the match. Boisson figured out that she could make Pegula hesitate in coming to the net, with a combination of drop shots and lobs that left the American in two minds. Advertisement 'In the beginning, even though there weren't many, you can still hear them on center court. But for the third set, it was full. It was incredible,' she said in her news conference. Boisson said she felt relaxed on one of the biggest courts in the sport. She's much more used to smaller venues, clubs with a few decent courts or dedicated tournament venues where spectators sit almost in the tramlines and might peer through wire fences, hoping to glimpse a player ready to break into the top tier of the sport. Boisson, like Victoria Mboko of Canada and Tereza Valentová of Czechia, is a breakthrough player at this Grand Slam. But the more important thing she shares with Mboko and Valentová, both 18 to Boisson's 22, is the accumulated confidence of a winning streak against players in her own wheelhouse. Playing the world No. 3 on Court Philippe-Chatrier is not like playing an ITF Tennis Tour event on the third rung of professional tennis in the middle of France. But winning is winning is winning. Boisson's streak just came a year before theirs. Before the ACL injury, she was 31-7 in ITF events in 2024. She was 14-6 going into the French Open, with 13 ITF wins and one WTA Tour win against Harriet Dart in Rouen, the site of the ugly comment from Dart that sent Boisson's name around the online world. She's 18-6 now. Winning is winning is winning. Advertisement She had harnessed that confidence throughout the second set, staying with Pegula in a situation in which it would have been easy to fall away. At 4-4, the pressure started to tell — for the American. Pegula missed two groundstrokes she will likely never miss at a major again, before Boisson cracked a backhand crosscourt to take the set. After the match, Pegula said she wasn't surprised by how Boisson played, with her heavy topspin forehand and the foot speed to access it from her backhand corner, while still being able to get back across the other side of the court when Pegula swung for the space. 'All she wants to do is hit forehands,' Pegula said. 'She's really good at moving. She's really fast, so she's really good at running around to get her forehand and, you know, also covering the forehand side. Advertisement Yeah, she hits it pretty heavy. I mean, super high and heavy when she wants to, when she needs to get back in the point, and then she's able to use her dropshot and slice.' Riding a wave of tricolores and chants of 'Loïs,' Boisson broke Pegula in the first game of the third set, but the American came back to reel off three games as Boisson went from sparkling to flat — and the crowd did too. But at 4-4, just as in the second set, her combination of high, heavy spin and elite redirection on her forehand — dragging Pegula this way and that — put more doubts in the American's mind. She missed a backhand from the middle of the court at deuce, and a point later, Boisson was serving for the match. With Boisson down 30-40, both players tightened. Pegula waifed a backhand over the net and then hit a clever short, angled forehand, but Boisson eked it over and the ball died at Pegula's feet. The American earned a second break point, but the crowd rose to Boisson again. A drop-shot-lob combination spinning over Pegula's head — the play that had given her a foothold in the match in the first place — brought the crowd to its feet and saw Boisson raise her arms for noise for the first time. Advertisement By the final game, Court Philippe-Chatrier was almost full. Word moved around the ticket-holders, likely waiting for Novak Djokovic's match to follow this one, that one of their own was doing something special. Another break point. Another drop shot. A flick from Pegula that dropped wide, the American leaning on the net in disbelief. A net cord off a Pegula return sent Boisson scrambling forward to a ball she somehow dug out. She played the next shot, a volley off a weak lob, like she wanted it to land on a pillow, not some clay. Pegula got to it but could only net. On her first match point, Boisson sent a forehand inside-in and raised her arms to a roar that shook Chatrier. It was Boisson's roar after the handshake, arms out and screaming into the sky, that made the past 12 months melt into air. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Tennis, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lois Boisson reaches French Open quarterfinals, stunning American No. 2 Jessica Pegula
ROLAND GARROS, PARIS — One year ago, Loïs Boisson had her tennis dream dashed. After tearing through the third rung of professional women's tennis, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) awarded Boisson a wild card for the French Open. A week before, at a minor tournament in Paris, Boisson tore her anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee and missed nine months of tennis. She didn't even watch the tournament on television. Advertisement Twelve months after the pain, Boisson was on Court Philippe-Chatrier, soaking in the adoration of a French crowd. She upset Jessica Pegula, the world No. 3, to reach the French Open quarterfinals. She is the first French woman to reach the last eight at Roland Garros since Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in 2017, after beating Pegula 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. 'I don't know what to say,' Boisson told the crowd in French on court. 'I knew before the match that there was a possibility, but I knew that she was very tough … I gave my all and in the end I won.' Boisson looked a little overawed by the occasion in the first set, as Pegula's relentless accuracy and consistency from the baseline ground her down and drew her into mistakes. Boisson couldn't read the American's drop shots and was often scrambling to no avail after being pushed further and further to the back of the court. Boisson is the world No. 361 as she makes her return from injury, and the 358 places were showing. But Boisson did not wilt, and the slow filling-up of the lower bowl of Chatrier was a barometer for how she worked her way into the match. Boisson figured out that she could make Pegula hesitate in coming to the net, with a combination of drop shots and lobs that left the American in two minds. Advertisement At 4-4 in the second set, the pressure started to tell. Pegula missed two groundstrokes she will likely never miss at a major again, before Boisson cracked a backhand crosscourt to take the set. Riding a wave of tricolores and chants of 'Loïs,' Boisson broke Pegula in the first game of the third set, but the American came back to reel off three games as Boisson went from sparkling to flat — and the crowd did too. But at 4-4, just as in the second set, her combination of high, heavy spin and elite redirection on her forehand — dragging Pegula this way and that — put more doubts in the American's mind. She missed a backhand from the middle of the court at deuce, and a point later, Boisson was serving for the match. With Boisson down 30-40, both players tightened. Pegula waifed a backhand over the net and then hit a clever short, angled forehand, but Boisson eked it over and the ball died at Pegula's feet. The American earned a second break point, but the crowd rose to Boisson again. A drop-shot-lob combination spinning over Pegula's head — the play that had given her a foothold in the match in the first place — brought the crowd to its feet and saw Boisson raise her arms for noise for the first time. Advertisement By the final game, Court Philippe-Chatrier was almost full. Word moved around the ticket-holders, likely waiting for Novak Djokovic's match to follow this one, that one of their own was doing something special. Another break point. Another drop shot. A flick from Pegula that dropped wide, the American leaning on the net in disbelief. A net cord off a Pegula return sent Boisson scrambling forward to a ball she somehow dug out. She played the next shot, a volley off a weak lob, like she wanted it to land on a pillow, not some clay. Pegula got to it but could only net. On her first match point, Boisson sent a forehand inside-in and raised her arms to a roar that shook Chatrier. It was Boisson's roar after the handshake, arms out and screaming into the sky, that made the past 12 months melt into air. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Tennis, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
