PARIS: An inspired Lois Boisson delighted Roland Garros as the French world number 361 downed Mirra Andreeva on Wednesday to set up a French Open semi-final against Coco Gauff, while Jannik Sinner secured a last-four meeting with either Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev.
Boisson, making her debut at a Grand Slam event, powered her way to a thrilling 7-6 (8/6), 6-3 victory on a raucous Court Philippe Chatrier to become the first Frenchwoman to reach the semis since Marion Bartoli in 2011.
The 22-year-old, who was due to play at last year’s French Open but suffered a knee injury the week before the tournament, is the lowest-ranked woman to reach a major semi-final in 40 years.
“It was incredible to play in front of this crowd and feel support like that,” said Boisson, after hitting 24 winners past Russian sixth seed Andreeva to follow up her fourth-round win over world number three Jessica Pegula with an even more surprising victory.
Boisson overcame 3-1 and 5-3 deficits to upend Andreeva in the first set. The former then rebounded from an early 3-0 deficit in the second as the 18-year-old Andreeva started to crumble under the pressure, being given a warning for slamming a ball into the top tier of the stands as the atmosphere heated up under the Chatrier roof.
She was roundly booed when she then argued with the umpire over a line call, and was broken later that game after another double-fault to suddenly trail 4-3.
Boisson made it six consecutive games to secure a seismic victory as Andreeva, one of the pre-tournament favourites, completely unravelled.
Second seed Gauff battled back from a set down to defeat fellow American, and Australian Open champion, Madison Keys in an error-strewn opening match 6-7 (6/8), 6-4, 6-1.
The former US Open champion upped her level enough after dropping the first set to get through a quarter-final littered with 14 double-faults and a whopping 101 unforced errors.
Gauff, the 2022 losing finalist, will be hoping to go at least one better than when she lost to Iga Swiatek in last year’s semi-final.
Although Gauff has yet to face Boisson in her career, she said she’s ready to overcome her opponent’s home-field advantage on the clay courts of Roland Garros.
“I think there are two ways I have [coped with] it in the past,” she said. “Either, A, just pretend they’re cheering for you, and B, just using it and not letting that get to you. I have been in crowds where they are 99 percent for me, so I don’t have an issue with it.
“I hope everyone will be respectful and things. If not, it’s cool. I think it makes sports exciting, and I can’t get irritated at the fact that someone is rooting for their hometown hero, because I would do the same.”
Swiatek continues her bid for a fourth consecutive Roland Garros title in a blockbuster match with world number one Aryna Sabalenka in Thursday’s other semi-final.
Men’s world number one Sinner, who only returned from a three-month doping ban last month at the Italian Open, booked his place in a second straight Roland Garros semi-final by swatting aside unseeded Kazakh Alexander Bublik 6-1, 7-5, 6-0.
The top seed is bidding for a third successive Grand Slam title after following his 2024 US Open triumph by successfully defending his Australian Open crown in January.
Sinner was far too strong for Bublik, playing in his first major quarter-final, hammering 31 winners in a dominant display and is yet to drop a set in the tournament.
“I’m very happy with how I’ve arrived in the semi-finals, semi-finals in Grand Slams are very special, I’m looking forward to it,” said the 23-year-old, who lost to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz in last year’s semis.
The Italian is just one win from reaching his first Slam final not on hard courts.
Bublik, who enjoyed the “best moment of his life” by defeating Jack Draper in the last 16, has now lost four of his five career meetings with Sinner.
ALCARAZ BLUDGEONS PAUL
In Tuesday’s night session, Alcaraz steamrolled past American 12th-seed Tommy Paul 6-0, 6-1, 6-4 with a jaw-dropping display of attacking tennis in one of the most one-sided men’s quarter-finals in Paris in recent memory.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Alcaraz’s merciless dismantling of Paul on Court Philippe Chatrier saw the 22-year-old Spaniard terrorising the former French Open junior champion who looked like a fish out of water.
Alcaraz charged through the first two sets in just 53 minutes and in near flawless fashion, hitting winners at will and chasing down every ball before the shell-shocked American had any time to react.
Paul pulled himself together to hold serve and go 4-3 up in the third but as the sun gradually went down over Paris so did the curtain on his inspired run, with Alcaraz winning three games in a row to put him out of his misery in just 94 minutes and set up a last-four meeting with Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti.
“I’m sorry you wanted to watch more tennis, I had to do my work,” Alcaraz told the crowd. “I could close my eyes and everything went in. My feeling was unbelievable. I tried to hit the shots 100% and not think about it. Today it was one of those matches where everything went in.”
It will be the third time Alcaraz and Musetti meet this clay-court season. Alcaraz has dominated that series — beating the Italian in the final in Monte Carlo before also stopping him in the last four on his way to the Rome title.
Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2025
