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RG.10- Marta Kostyuk and the Chamber of Inevitability

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RG.10- Marta Kostyuk and the Chamber of Inevitability

Awaking in Paris on Day 10 with the knowledge of the latest deadly attacks on Kyiv, Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina’s historic all-Ukrainain quarterfinal match-up for a berth in the Roland Garros semis was both *more* significant, as well as less. But that’s been a dilemma faced by both women since early 2022 when Russia’s invasion of their home country set off a now years long battle for survival on the homefront, and their own endeavors to determine the appropriate actions/reactions to undertake as professional tennis players safely traveling the globe, but with an important, untouchable part of their soul persistently in jeopardy.

So, for a few hours, the two stepped onto a small patch of clay playing surface on Court Philippe-Chatrier and, surrounded by a large group of friends, acquaintances and strangers, went about trying to experience the joy and drama of producing the greatest moment of their professional lives.

Their match on Tuesday often featured one of the two women — who first faced off in the Australian Open 3rd Round in 2018 when Kostyuk was making her slam debut at just 15-years old, while Svitolina was already contending for majors and laying down an original path for Ukrainian women’s tennis players like Kostyuk to follow in her footsteps — seizing control of the action over an extended stretch. First one, then the other, the winners of this year’s two biggest clay court titles of the season leading into this RG, showed their best tennis as they battled for the same prize. Only rarely did the action produce an exquisite brand of back-and-forth tennis momentum.

But, for what the contest may have lacked in extended competitive drama, it more than made up for in the end — ah, the end — as its closing moments provided a masterful example of why Kostyuk, as downright jangly as some of her personal and professional tactics might sometimes feel, after carrying with her an air of inevitability for going on a few years now, fully stepped into the spotlight. Long before today, she’d felt like a star in the making, a force to be reckoned with being incubated within the chamber of the WTA tour, which one day might collectively experience moments where she *couldn’t* be contained.

As Kostyuk put the finishing touches on her greatest career moment today, setting the stage for others that would surely even succeed it (maybe *very* soon), Marta put on her “lead character” clothing like she never has before, doing so on the biggest stage she’s ever been offered, across the net from the player that her career path perhaps owes the most.

It was worth the wait.

On the biggest day of her career, the #15-seeded Kostyuk burst from the match’s starting gate, breaking her countrywoman and friend to take a 2-0 lead. She held for 3-0 before Svitolina slowly began to join in. Kostyuk’s 40/15 lead in game 5 was transformed to deuce by the #7 seed, but the younger Ukrainian’s hold to go up 4-1 made it seem as if the notion of getting back into the 1st set was already a lost cause.

It wasn’t, but Svitolina’s predicament also wasn’t a completely salvageable one.

Svitolina saved a BP that threatened to put her down 5-1 on the scoreboard, getting the hold and then taking a love/30 lead on return in the following game. She broke to get back on serve at 4-3 when Kostyuk’s backhand down the line went wide. But Kostyuk wasn’t playing along in Svitolina’s big comeback moment. She held multiple BP chances in the next game, and on the second saw Svitolina miss on a swing volley to give Kostyuk her break lead back.

With the sound of the rain suddenly pounding down on the Chatrier roof, echoing around the stadium, Kostyuk DF’d and faced a BP. Svitolina missed on her return, then sent a shot long to end a rally on a second chance. When Kostyuk first reached SP, Svitolina saved it with a drop/lob combination, but another long error put an end to rescuing her 1st set fortunes, as Kostyuk took the opener at 6-3.

The veteran that she is, Svitolina righted course in the 2nd. In game 2, she played into her 2.0 version’s more aggressive gameplans by forcing her way in toward the net, knocking Kostyuk back a step and carving out an early opportunity. She broke to lead 2-0, then followed with a quick consolidating hold a game later. Another fast hold put her up 4-1, then 5-2, as Svitolina’s forward play saw her blanketing the net and daring her 23-year old countrywoman to get the ball by her.

Often, Kostyuk couldn’t, as Svitolina, as TNT’s Lindsay Davenport blurted out following a particularly beautiful sliced volley, was “covering the net like Stefan Edberg out here!” [NOTE: this Backspinner always appreciates a nice reference to the brilliant net game of the not-mentioned-often-enough-these-days Swede, don’t you know.]

A Kostyuk netted forehand on BP/SP #2 of the game gave Svitolina a 6-2 2nd set victory and sent things to a decider.

With the moment at hand for at least *one* of the two to seize their chance, they exchanged breaks to open the 3rd, resetting the table. Then they did it again, with Svitolina DF’ing on a BP, then Kostyuk missing on a volley when BP down a game later. 2-2. Reset, again.

Kostyuk then caught a proverbial gust of wind, reaching and directly a low volley off the net cord cross court for a winner to break Svitolina again, going up 3-2. And, with that, Marta took charge. And what a finish it was.

Not pausing to allow her sudden momentum to wain, Kostuk embraced her “inevitability” and completed a commanding hold of serve, highlighted by superior court coverage and her perfectly excecuted overhead. A game later, every shot coming off her racket was working. A down-the-line the winner? Yes. A drop shot? Why, of course. She went up 15/40, and broke for 5-2 as she now seemed relentless as she traveled down her path to the finish.

If one could bottle the moment and produce it upon command to any doubter, it would leave no lingering questions about why Kostyuk’s very best tennis can so easily be viewed as a landscape-changing force for good, when her athleticism and fire combine to produce a viscerally entertaining product with a universality for admiration that is far more rare in the sport than one would think, but which is ultimately recognized the longer one views the landscape as it evolves and advances (and sometimes devolves) over the years.

In the final games of this QF, Kostyuk lifted her game to that “other” level, one that Svitolina could not hope to match. In fact, only a few current players probably could, and they’re at the very top of the current rankings, as they should be. This was the Kostyuk that showed up in a pair of sterling contests vs. #1 Aryna Sabalenka just last year (only even *that* version of herself then wasn’t enough to even get a set off the Belarusian… though Kostyuk *could* get another shot very soon to see if anything has changed).

As for *this* match, it was already over. The result was now, yes, inevitable.

Going up 40/love as she served for the match, Kostuk concluded her second straight hold without dropping a point, taking the match by a 6-3/2-6/6-2 score, improving her season mark on clay to 17-0 and reaching her maiden major semifinal.

As she fully spread her wings down the stretch, Kostyuk lost just three total points in the final four games. She won thirteen of the last fourteen, with nine of those claimed with winners.

She’s never looked more “inevitable.”

Svitolina falls to 0-6 in career RG quarterfinals with the result. She deserves praise for managing to inject herself back into the conversation when it comes to contending for major titles at age 31, after becoming a mother and returning with a new urgency instilled into her gameday style, but in a crowded field (behind the likes of Sabalenka and Rybakina) only getting more so one wonders whether this might turn out to remain her best chance since her *last* best chance to emerge at the head of the crowd in Paris nearly a decade ago. A player only gets so many opportunities, and at some point they run out.

Kostyuk, though, is only now stepping for the first time into her period of potential title runs. If she’s the force, not to mention the cult of personality, that she appears to be, today may represent the moment that she passed Svitolina by in more ways than one.

Now, the wait begins for what great moment Kostyuk will inevitably produce next. It might not take long.

=DAY 10 NOTES=

…the day’s first women’s QF didn’t have the same historic or heavy undertones as the all-Ukrainian affair that followed it onto Chatrier, but it *was* significant in that, hardly surprisingly since it pitted two players with a seventeen-year age gap between them, it represented a case of two proverbial ships meeting and passing in the night.

In the end, 19-year old #8 seeded Mirra Andreeva advanced to her second career major SF (both in Paris in the last three years), playing a near-flawless match against 36-year old #18 seed Sorana Cirstea, who was playing in her third career RG QF seventeen years after she’d appeared in her first back in 2009. While Andreeva’s potentially-great career is still just getting started, Cirstea — in the process of what might be her best season yet — is making the rounds in what she has said will be her final season on tour.

Played beneath the Chatrier roof as it rained down on Paris outside, Andreeva hit the terre battue running, winning 25 of 34 points in a love 1st set victory, claiming 85% of her first serve points (11/13), while also taking 12 of 16 of the total points played during Cirstea’s service games, as well. The Romanian was credited with just one winner in the set.

Cirstea finally got on the scoreboard with a hold to open the 2nd, and stayed even with the Hordette through the mid-way point of the set. The two traded breaks in games 5 & 6, taking a 3-3 score into the back-half of the action. But Andreeva quickly reclaimed her prominance in the match, breaking Cirstea for 4-3, then backing it up with a love hold before breaking the Romanian to end the match, winning 6-0/6-3.

Andreeva more than doubled Cirstea’s points total (56-27) on the day, and had an even larger edge in winners at 18-4. Her 20 match wins (in 23 matches) leads the tour in clay court victories this spring, though her lone title on the dirt in ’26 came in Linz, even as a 500 event one of the smaller, least important and less-populated-by-top-players of the pre-RG events held in Europe since the start of April.

Up next for Andreeva will be Kostyuk, the player who defeated her in the Madrid final, then did an on-court backflip while the teenager was an emotional mess just over her shoulder in the changeover area.

So, it’ll be Andreeva, the tour’s youngest “player of destiny,” against the “inevitability” of Kostyuk. Even if we didn’t also have so many things scribbled in the margins of the script for this one, it’d be quite an intriguig prospect in its own right regarding the future of the women’s game, especially as it occurs in the shadow of the what will surely be the well-chronicled return of the all-time women’s slam queen a little farther east on the continent coming up in less than a week.

…meanwhile, in opening round wheelchair action, #4-seed Diede de Groot (back up to #2 in the rankings this week after her Barcelona 1000 title on the weekend) took care of countrywoman Lizzy de Greef in their third meeting in a matter of weeks, winning 6-0/5-7/6-1. The young Dutch player, ranked #7, defeated de Groot for the first time en route to a title in Rome last month, a result avenged by the 23-time slam singles champion in the Barcelona final just a few days ago. She now leads their career head-to-head 6-1.

The other veteran-vs.-NextGen match-up of the first went the other way, as Ksenia Chasteau knocked off #3-seed Aniek Van Koot, 6-4/2-6/6-4.

*WOMEN’S SINGLES QF*
#1 Aryna Sabalenka/BLR vs. vs. #25 Diana Shnaider/RUS
#22 Anna Kalinskaya/RUS vs. (Q) Maja Chwalinska/POL
#15 Marta Kostyuk/UKR def. #7 Elina Svitolina/UKR
#8 Mirra Andreeva/RUS def. #18 Sorana Cirstea/ROU

=WOMEN’S DOUBLES SF=
#1 Siniakova/Townsend (CZE/USA) def. Kempen/Klepac (BEL/SLO)
#4 Dabrowski/Stefani (CAN/BRA) def. Siegemund/Zvonareva (GER/RUS)
Aoyama/Liang (JPN/TPE) vs. #13 Guo Hanyu/Mladenovic (CHN/FRA)
#7 Perez/Schuurs (AUS/NED) vs. #2 Danilina/Krunic (KAZ/SRB)

=MIXED DOUBLES SF=
#1 Errani/Vavassori (ITA/ITA) vs. Siegemund/Roger-Vasselin (GER/FRA)
Dabrowski/King (CAN/USA) vs. Muhammad/Mektic (USA/CRO)

=WHEELCHAIR SINGLES QF=
#1 Yui Kamiji/JPN vs. (WC) Pauline Deroulede/FRA
#4 Diede de Groot/NED vs. Guo Luoyao/CHN
Kgothatso Montjane/RSA vs. Ksenia Chasteau/FRA
Wang Ziying/CHN vs. #2 Li Xiaohui/CHN

=WHEELCHAIR DOUBLES QF=
#1 Kamiji/Zhu (JPN/CHN) vs. Bernal/Griffioen (COL/NED)
de Groot/Van Koot (NED/NED) vs. Chasteau/Tanaka (FRA/JPN)
Deroulede/Fairbank (FRA/FRA) vs. Bos/de Greef (NED/NED
Guo/Montjane (CHN/RSA) d. Li/Wang (CHN/CHN)

=GIRLS SINGLES ROUND OF 16=
(Q) Ekaterina Dotsenko/RUS vs. #13 Mariella Thamm/GER
#12 Alisa Oktiabreva/RUS vs. #7 Sol Ailin Larraya Guidi/ARG
#4 Jana Kovackova/CZE vs> #14 Felitsata Dorofeeva-Rybas/RUS
#9 Charo Esquiva Banuls/ESP vs. #5 Nauhany Vitoria Leme da Silva/BRA
#8 Mariia Makarova/RUS vs. Lee Ha-eum/KOR
Denisa Zoldakova/CZE vs. #3 Victoria Luiza Barros/BRA
#6 Anastasija Cvetkova/SRB vs. #11 Paola Pinera Celorio/ESP
Maria Ilinca Burcescu/ROU vs. #2 Sun Xinran/CHN

…EXTRA CREDIT (as always) FOR USING THE ADDITIONAL “N” (as it should be)… ON DAY 10:

…3, 2, 1… ON DAY 10:

Serena can still steal a spotlight easier and better than anyone.

…THIS IS A GOOD IDEA… ON DAY 10:

All of the slams should do something like this, while they can.

It’s still pretty remarkable that, 58 years after the start of the Open era, that save for four individuals, 105 of the 109 unique winners of men’s/women’s slam singles titles since 1968 are still with us.

The only exceptions: Arthur Ashe (who died in 1993), Vitas Gerulaitis (1994), Jana Novotna (2017, the only one of 61 women’s Open era major winners now deceased) and Andres Gimeno (who died in 2019).

…THANK YOU, CARO… ON DAY 10:

After the Kostyuk/Svitolina match concluded, it was nice to hear Caroline Wozniacki — while everyone on the TNT panel remained mum, BTW — touched on the situation that has persisted, still exists, and will continue to do so between the Ukrainian and Russian/Belarusian players (and a few others). It’s certainly going to be front and center at least once at this RG as things go forward, no matter how much most of the coverage tries to dance around it.

The Dane noted that while players such as Kostyuk are going against the Russian players on the court, she and others are not truly going against *the war* when they’re between the lines playing a tennis match. As far as their not actively campaigning against what is happening (especially not near enough to the Ukrainian’s likening), Caro noted that the Russian players must take into account their own families at home, and because of that they can’t easily overtly disagree with the government’s wartime actions even if those are their feelings on the matter since it might put the safety and well-being of those they’re close to in jeopardy. It’s tough, she said. For those players, publicly speaking out is not as simple a situation as the Ukrainain players often make it out to be.

It’s felt for a while that Svitolina has recognized that fact, but has remained true to the cause (but without embarrassing herself in the process), and after the early months of the war, Kostyuk, too — while more outward in her comments/actions on occasion — has for the most part at least maintained a mostly-acceptable level of personal professionalism — even if the record is an imperfect one — that is relative enough to reality that her conduct isn’t reguarly downright abusive to other WTA tour members.

The same can’t be said for *all* the Ukrainian players, of course, especially one whose self-identification as a “role model” doesn’t speak well for the future if too many others decide to follow her lead.

It’d be nice if former and/or current players poked their head out and stated the case that Wozniacki did more often, if at all. So her reasoned, real world-based comments were greatly appreciated from this space today in what has become something of a vacuum filled by either hateful words or dead silence, neither of which accomplishes much of anything (and, as we’ve seen, usually just exacerbates an already difficult situation).


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*FIRST-TIME SLAM SEMIFINALISTS AT RG SINCE 2014*
2014 Simona Halep, ROU (RU)
2014 Andrea Petkovic, GER
2015 Timea Bacsinszky, SUI
2016 Kiki Bertens, NED
2017 Alona Ostapenko, LAT (W)
2019 Amanda Anisimova, USA
2019 Ash Barty, AUS (W)
2019 Marketa Vondrousova, CZE (RU)
2020 Nadia Podoroska, ARG
2020 Iga Swiatek, POL (W)
2021 Barbora Krejcikova, CZE (W)
2021 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, RUS (RU)
2021 Maria Sakkari, GRE
2021 Tamara Zidansek, SLO
2022 Coco Gauff, USA (RU)
2022 Dasha Kasatkina, RUS
2022 Martina Trevisan, ITA
2023 Beatriz Haddad Maia, BRA
2024 Mirra Andreeva, RUS
2024 Jasmine Paolini, ITA (RU)
2025 Lois Boisson, FRA
2026 Marta Kostyuk, UKR
—
NOTE: winner of Chwalinska/Kalinskaya will be first-timer; Shnaider would be, as well

*LONG WTA (MD+BJK only) WINNING STREAKS – 2020s*
37 – Iga Swiatek (2022)
21 – Iga Swiatek (2024)
18 – Iga Swiatek (2023-24)
17 – Simona Halep (2020)
17 – MARTA KOSTYUK (2026, through QF)

*MOST SLAM MATCH WINS WITHOUT A MAJOR TITLE – active*
117 – Elina Svitolina
97 – Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
91 – Vera Zvonareva
90 – Karolina Pliskova


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TOP QUALIFIER: Claire Liu/USA
TOP EARLY-ROUND (1r-2r): #3 Iga Swiatek/POL
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): x
TOP LATE-ROUND (SF-F): x
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: Q1: Oceane Dodin/FRA (PR) def. Kayla Day/USA 6-4/2-6/7-6(15-13) – saved 2 MP in TB, wins on MP #5
TOP EARLY-RD. MATCH (1r-2r): 1st Rd. – #7 Elina Svitolina/UKR def. Anna Bondar/HUN 3-6/6-1/7-6(10-3) – Bondar, who def. in Madrid, led 3-1 in 3rd set; Rome champ Svitolina avoids first 1st Rd. loss in RG career)
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): x
TOP LATE-RD. MATCH (SF-F/Jr.-WC): x
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: #27 Marie Bouzkova/CZE (def. Bronzetti/ITA)
FIRST SEED OUT: #21 Clara Tauson/DEN (1r – lost to Snigur/UKR)
FIRST SLAM MD WINS: Susan Bandecchi/SUI (1st MD), Marina Bassols Ribera/ESP (2nd MD), Francesca Jones/GBR (7th MD), Oleksandra Oliynykova/UKR (2nd MD), Kaitlin Quevedo/ESP (1st MD), Antonia Ruzic/CRO (3rd MD)
UPSET QUEENS: Switzerland
REVELATION LADIES: Poland (4-0 1st Rd. in consecutive ’26 majors)
NATION OF POOR SOULS: FRA (none of 14 in Q-draw reach MD; wild cards go 0-6 year after WC Boisson to SF; 2-7 1st Rd.; Boisson out 1r)
LAST QUALIFIER STANDING: Maja Chwalinska/POL (in QF)
LUCKY LOSER WINS: —
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: 0-8 in 1st Rd.
PROTECTED RANKING WINS: Jil Teichmann/SUI (in 3r)
LAST PASTRY STANDING: Diane Parry (4th Rd.)
Ms./Mademoiselle OPPORTUNITÉ : Nominee: Kostyuk, Kalinskaya, Shnaider
IT “??“: Nominees: Andreeva (teen), Jr.
COMEBACK: Nominees: de Groot? (WC), Hordettes (3 in QF), Teichmann
CRASH & BURN: #5 Jessie Pegula/USA (1r- lost to #83 Birrell, who’d lost 9 con. slam 1r matches and 3-13 career; Pegula led by 6-1/2-1 w/ break; second 1r loss in major since RG20) and #2 Elena Rybakina/KAZ (AO champ out 2r in 3rd set TB to #55 Starodubtseva)
ZOMBIE QUEEN OF PARIS: Elina Svitolina/UKR (1r- trailed Bondar 3-1 in 3rd; avoided first 1r RG loss in 13 app.; 3r- lost 1st to Bencic, faced BP early in 2nd, then won 15/17 pts, 11/14 games to end)
DOUBLES STAR: x
VETERAN PLAYER (KIMIKO CUP): Sorana Cirstea/ROU (second RG QF 17 years after first)
Mademoiselle/Madame OF THE EVENING: Nominee: Sabalenka (def. Osaka in first women’s night session match scheduled since 2023)
JUNIOR BREAKOUT: x
Legion de Lenglen: 100th anniversary of Suzanne Lenglen’s last “grand slam” titles (RG WS/WD/MX sweep) in 1926 (she’d retire after controversial Wimbledon withdrawal and join professional tour that summer)
Coupe LA-PETIT-TAUREAU: Maja Chwalinska/POL – 5’5″ Pole reaches maiden slam QF in first RG MD on June 1 (Henin’s birthday)

All for Day 10. More tomorrow.

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