Five years ago at the 2021 US Open, Emma Raducanu became the first qualifier to make and subsequently win a Grand Slam final. Maja Chwalinska has the join her in a victory that would be even more unlikely. Prior to this tournament, Chwalinska has recorded just one match win at Grand Slam level and had in fact failed in the qualifying stages in 11 of her previous 13 attempts to make the main draw. She has never been ranked inside the top 100 and has spent the bulk of her career on the ITF circuit. In contrast, Andreeva was an instant success on the WTA Tour after making her debut as a 15-year-old! Still a teenager, she has won multiple WTA 1000 titles, a silver medal at the Olympics and recorded wins over the world’s best including Sabalenka, Swiatek and Rybakina.
It was a shock too see Andreeva installed as the outsider against Kostyuk in the semi finals and she picked her apart from the opening point. Kostyuk had no answer to the power, consistency and athleticism of Andreeva. In the last 10 sets Andreeva has played she has dropped a total of only 20 games. That is 2 games per set! Andreeva won 66% of 2nd serve return points in her semi final and despite spending almost half the amount of time on court as Chwalinska (8 hours 14 minutes compared to 15 hours and 44 minutes) she has generated 30 breaks of serve to Chwalinska’s 28.
Anyone who did not watch Chwalinska’s semi final win over Shnaider but saw that she had 32 winners would think that she dominated her opponent. It was not the case as Chwalinska did what she has done for almost three weeks now in Paris – defend, defend, drop shot, lob, slice, defend, passing shot winner. More than 90% of her winners were either drop shots, lobs or passing shots. The only question we need to ask in this match is will Andreeva be able to hit through Chwalinska and deal with high looping balls. The answer to that is a resounding YES.
We also have an interesting prop bet for the final. Chwalinska has failed to serve an ace in 5 of her 6 matches played (7 of last 8 if you go back to qualifiers) and that is a certainty to continue here.
Best Bet: Andreeva -4.5 ($1.70)
Other: Chwalinska Under 0.5 aces ($1.85)
Value: Set 1 Correct Score After 2 Games – Andreeva 2-0 ($2.65)