Hello and welcome to coverage of the second women’s French Open semi-final between Italy’s Jasmine Paolini and teen sensation Mirra Andreeva.
You would have got long odds on Paolini and Andreeva coming through their respective draws to reach the last four but they certainly earned their spots as they claimed the biggest victories of their career.
First Paolini beat Elena Rybakina in three sets then Andreeva took out Australian Open champion Sabalenka. It means we will have a first time grand slam finalist on Saturday against either Iga Swiatek or Coco Gauff.
“With Mirra, it’s going to be a tough match. I played against her in Madrid, and she’s a really great player,” said Paolini, who become the fourth Italian woman after Francesca Schiavone, Sara Errani and Martina Trevisan to make the French Open semi-finals in the open era.
“She’s so young but she’s so, so good mentally, and she can defend very well. She can serve well. It’s going to be a tough match, but we are in the semi-final, so there is no chance to get easy matches.”
Andreeva is also in unchartered territory but has been tipped for the top of women’s tennis. At 17 years and 38 days, Andreeva is the youngest women’s singles grand slam semi-finalist since Martina Hingis in 1997 at the US Open, and the youngest at the French Open since Hingis in 1997.
“I would say that I didn’t really expect [to be] playing [in the] semi finals,” she said. “I played (Varvara) Gracheva a few days ago and I was, like, ‘if I win the match I will be in quarter finals, but then if I play Sabalenka and if I win I can be in semi finals. Wow, that could be a dream’.
“I will be playing semi finals, and so my thoughts kind of came true. So if we look back, I wouldn’t expect myself playing semi finals, because that was just kind of a dream for me in the beginning of the tournament, but now I will be playing semi finals, so I’ve got to prepare for the match already.”
