The 2025 French Open has entered its final week, with the men’s draw guaranteed to crown a first-time Grand Slam champion and women’s world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka one win away from reaching her second consecutive Roland Garros semi-final.
Sabalenka, the 2024 French Open runner-up and one of only two remaining top-10 seeds in the women’s draw, has called this a golden opportunity to go one step further and claim her first clay-court major. Fresh off a straight-sets last-16 victory over four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, the 28-year-old Belarusian said she has avoided overthinking her past runner-up result to stay focused on the current tournament.
“I’m bringing my best level that I have, and I’m there, I’m fighting, and you know, I’m doing everything I can to get this trophy,” Sabalenka said post-match. Before she can secure a spot in her seventh straight Grand Slam semi-final, she will face 22-year-old Russian 25th seed Diana Shnaider in Wednesday’s quarter-final. This will be the first meeting between the two players, with Sabalenka acknowledging Shnaider’s tricky all-court game. “She’s a great player. I’d say tricky game, changing the rhythm a lot, and moving well, great serving. So I’m super excited to face her for the first time,” Sabalenka added.
In the other women’s quarter-final on Wednesday, 22nd-seeded Russian Anna Kalinskaya will go up against unheralded Polish qualifier Maja Chwalinska. Kalinskaya, who reached the Australian Open quarter-finals in 2023, enters the match as the heavy favorite to advance to her first major semi-final. But Chwalinska, ranked world No. 114, has already pulled off a series of stunning upsets to reach this stage, opening the tournament with a win over Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen before beating 23rd seed Elise Mertens and former world No. 3 Maria Sakkari. Accepting her underdog status, Chwalinska said: “Everyone here is higher in the ranking than me. So they are the favourites to win. I’m like an underdog. No one really knows me.”
The men’s side of the draw has already made history after early exits of top contenders including Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner, opening the door for an unprecedented first-time Grand Slam champion. Canadian fourth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime, the highest-ranked player left in the top half of the draw, is targeting his first major title, but has never advanced past the French Open’s fourth round in his career.
Auger-Aliassime admitted the early upsets of Djokovic and Sinner created a stir, but he has since shifted focus to his own run. “Of course not having Sinner, for example, in semi-finals is another opportunity, but you need to be there. So I have to focus on the next match and try to be in the semi-finals,” he said. To reach the semi-final, he first has to beat Italian 10th seed Flavio Cobolli, with the winner advancing to face either Matteo Berrettini (ranked 105th) or Matteo Arnaldi (ranked 104th) for a spot in the final. Auger-Aliassime is the only non-Italian left in the top half of the draw.
The all-Italian quarter-final clash between Cobolli and Arnaldi has been billed as an Italian derby, with Arnaldi noting the historic moment for all four players left in the bracket. “It’s so special, I mean, for everyone. For Flavio, for Matteo, for me. I feel like we all have different stories, but we’re all so happy to be here, so happy to play quarters in a Slam,” Arnaldi said. The 24-year-old has already made history this tournament, spending a record 17 hours and 42 minutes on court through the quarter-finals, the longest total play time for any player reaching this stage of a major since tournament tracking began. “Definitely it’s going to be a tough one for us, because it’s a derby,” Arnaldi added.