Maja Chwalińska

Maja Ewa Chwalińska (; born 11 October 2001) is a Polish professional tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of No. 21 in singles, achieved on 8 June 2026 and No. 91 in doubles, reached on 9 June 2025. Chwalińska's best result is reaching the final of the 2026 French Open, the first qualifier to achieve the feat at the event. Long before her breakthrough on the senior WTA tour, Chwalińska was regarded as one of Poland’s brightest junior talents. Early in her life, Maja became close friends with Iga Świątek. “We’ve known each other since we were 10 years old,” Chwalińska revealed to Roland Garros. They were runners-up in the Australian Open 2017 girls’ doubles and won the European junior doubles titles and helped Poland capture the Junior Fed Cup crown in 2016.

After Chwalińska reached the final at the 2026 French Open, 90,000 concertgoers paid tribute to her at the Silesian Stadium in Chorzów, in southern Poland. Polish pop star Dawid Podsiadło and the Polish crowd sang “Sto lat,” a traditional Polish song wishing her a happy life. Podsiadło, who like Maja comes from Dąbrowa Górnicza, had promised to lead the tribute before the French Open final. When he asked Chwalińska on social media whether he would be allowed to hold the trophy if she won, Chwalińska, who didn't reply until after the match was finished, said that although she had not returned with the championship trophy, she could offer him the silver plate awarded to the runner-up.

Career

2015–17: Juniors She won the European 14-and-under doubles title in 2015 and the 16-and-under doubles title in 2016, both with Iga Świątek. She was a member of the Polish team which won the Junior Fed Cup title in 2016, and she made the final of the 2017 Australian Open junior doubles. She won the 16-and-under singles title six months later. Her highest junior Tennis Europe ranking was No. 6 in August 2017.

2019: Fed Cup debut Poland hosted the Europe/Africa I Fed Cup pool at Zielona Góra in February. Chwalińska represented her country at senior level for the first time in the tie against Denmark, where she partnered Alicja Rosolska in the doubles. They defeated Maria Jespersen and Hannah Viller Møller, recording her first Fed Cup win. She reached the doubles final of the ITF event in Trnava the following week and the singles semifinals in Altenkirchen the week after. She and Ulrikke Eikeri won the doubles title at the ITF tournament in Sunderland, England. Chwalińska's first singles ITF title followed in July in Bytom. A week later, she made it two singles titles in a row on the Polish swing of the circuit.

2020–21: Grand Slam tournament qualifying debut Chwalińska made her qualifying debut at the 2020 Australian Open, where she lost in the first round to Isabella Shinikova. She returned to tournament play in August at the 2020 Prague Open, which had been upgraded to replace the cancelled US Open qualifying competition.

Chwalińska lost to Yuan Yue in the first round of qualifying for the 2021 Australian Open, which was held in Dubai, before reaching the semifinals of a $25k tournament in Grenoble, but aggravated her wrist injury in Altenkirchen the following week and had to withdraw from her first match. She then went to Argentina for a series of $25k tournaments, but contracted COVID-19 and had to return home, after quarantining without playing a match.

In 2021, at 19 years old, she announced she would be putting her professional career on hold. She revealed she was suffering from severe depression and would be taking time off from the courts to fight the problem. Through a social media post, Chwalińska stated she had been dealing with depression since the end of 2019.

2022–23: Major debut at Wimbledon and first win

Chwalińska qualified for her first main draw at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, defeating second seed CoCo Vandeweghe in the final round of qualifying. She defeated Kateřina Siniaková for her first singles win. For her WTA Tour debut outside the majors, Chwalińska was given a wildcard entry into the main draw of the 2022 Poland Open, where she recorded her second tour-level win over Rebeka Masarova. At the 2023 Poland Open, where she also entered as a wildcard, she lost to Laura Siegemund in the first round.

2024–25: WTA 125 singles & doubles titles, top 150 In October 2024, Chwalińska qualified for the main draw at the Mérida Open and defeated Rebecca Marino for her first WTA Tour win on hardcourts, where she lost to top seed Renata Zarazúa.

Partnering with Katarzyna Kawa, Chwalińska won her first WTA 125 doubles title at the 2024 Argentina Open defeating Laura Pigossi and Mayar Sherif in the final, which went to a deciding tiebreak. The following week, she won her first WTA 125 singles title at the MundoTenis Open in Florianópolis, Brazil overcoming Ylena In-Albon in the final in straight sets. Alongside Pigossi, she also won the doubles title, defeating Nicole Fossa Huergo and Valeriya Strakhova in the final.

At the 2025 Iași Open, Chwalińska defeated Iryna Shymanovich to record her first WTA Tour win since 2024, before losing to sixth seed Jil Teichmann in the second round. Chwalińska won her second WTA 125 singles title at the 2025 Montreux Ladies Open, defeating fifth seed Darja Semeņistaja in the final.

2026: French Open final as a qualifier, top 25 In February, in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, Chwalińska recorded two WTA Tour-level wins over Ana Bogdan and Olga Danilović as a qualifier. In April, she won her third WTA 125 singles title at the Oeiras Ladies Open.

Ranked No. 114, Chwalińska qualified for her first major main draw at the 2026 French Open in her Paris debut by defeating Alice Ramé, Carole Monnet and Suzan Lamens. She reached the third round for the first time in her career with wins over Zheng Qinwen, and 23rd seed Elise Mertens, both in straight sets. She reached the fourth round by defeating Maria Sakkari and joined compatriot and world No. 3, Iga Świątek, as the first two Polish players to reach the fourth round at Roland Garros the same year. It marked the third time in history that Poland had two competitors at that stage at one of the four majors, after Marta Domachowska and Agnieszka Radwańska (at the 2008 Australian Open), and Magda Linette and Świątek (at the 2023 Australian Open). Chwalińska then defeated home favorite Diane Parry to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in her career, thereby becoming only the fourth Polish major quarterfinalist in the Open Era, following Radwańska, Świątek, and Linette. She continued her run by defeating 22nd seed Anna Kalinskaya in the quarterfinals, and 25th seed Diana Shnaider in the semifinals, becoming the first qualifier ever to play the final at Roland Garros, and the second qualifier finalist at a major after Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open. Chwalińska lost in the final to No. 8 seed Mirra Andreeva. As a result, she made her top 25 debut at world No. 21, on 8 June 2026.

At the start of the grass-court season, she earned a wildcard for the 2026 Wimbledon Championships. Seeded at No. 20, Chwalińska no longer needed to enter qualifying and entered Wimbledon with direct main-draw status for the first time in her career. As a result, she became the third player with a wildcard to be seeded in a major (after Martina Hingis in 2002 and Patty Schnyder in 2004).

Seeded No. 20, Chwalińska made her Wimbledon main-draw debut as a seeded player. In the first round, she lost to qualifier Mananchaya Sawangkaew, 6–2, 5–7, 2–6, after holding a match point at 6–2, 5–2. During that point, she slipped and injured her right ankle, requiring a medical timeout. Although she resumed play, her movement was affected, allowing Sawangkaew to rally for her first major main-draw victory.

Playing style Chwalińska's game is characterized as "full of craft and guile". At only , Chwalińska does not have the power to blast players off court and instead focuses her game on slice, topspin, and drop shots, a style which she has acknowledged is "very annoying for other players". She frequently constructs points methodically rather than quickly, and frustrates opponents by consistently returning their attempted winners rather than attempting many of her own. Her style of play translates particularly well to clay courts, evidenced by her breakthrough at the 2026 French Open.