It’s been a Roland Garros like none other.

A brutal heat wave in the first week, a hailstorm and wild winds in the second week and stunning collapses by top seeds Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka have combined to make this year’s event one of the most unpredictable of the Open Era.

We expected an Italian in the men’s final. But instead of the all-conquering Sinner, we have Flavio Cobolli.

Many fans expected to see a Pole in the women’s final. But it would not be four-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek; it is World No. 114 Maja Chwalinska, the daughter of a Polish coal miner who needed help to pay her hotel bill when her stay extended beyond the qualifying rounds.

Sinner started one of the shortest-priced Grand Slam favourites in recent memory after sweeping all three clay-court Masters 1000s and with rival Carlos Alcaraz withdrawing from Paris with a wrist injury. He was within one service hold of a straight-sets, second-round win over World No. 56 Juan Manuel Cerundolo before wilting in the heat and losing in five sets.

Aryna Sabalenka, who like Sinner was a 2025 Roland Garros finalist and claimed a first Indian Wells title earlier this year, reached the quarter-finals, but suffered a similar collapse.

In the quarter-finals, Sabalenka led Diana Shnaider 6-3, 4-1 with a double break in hand before losing her cool and 12 of the last 13 games in blustery conditions.

Analysis of the women’s draw pre-tournament centered on the many Top 10 players lining up for their shot at the title. But only four of the top eight seeds reached the second week, with World No. 2 and Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, defending champion Coco Gauff and World No. 6 Amanda Anisimova among the early-round casualties.

World No. 8 Mirra Andreeva reached the final to restore some semblance of order, but what no one saw coming was the run of Chwalinska to the final.

After winning her three qualifying matches, the soft-spoken 24-year-old sheepishly approached the front desk of her hotel to say that she didn’t have cash on hand to extend her stay. A Polish company stepped in to help pay for the longer stay. Two weeks later she’s guaranteed to leave Paris with $1.6 million (double her career earnings to date) or $3.2 million if she wins the title.

Chwalinska is the first qualifier to reach the Roland Garros final and only the second qualifier to make a Grand Slam final, after Emma Raducanu's run to the US Open title in 2021.

“It’s joy, surprise, and so many emotions… I feel overwhelmed,” said Chwalinska, who had just two tour-level wins in her career before entering Roland Garros. “I’m crazy sometimes. I try to stay composed because it helps me to play my best tennis, but there is a storm in me.”

Strange as it may seem after climbing to World No. 21 by reaching the final, Chwalinska will need to play qualifying at Wimbledon - unless she is given a wild card - because main-draw entry is based on rankings six weeks prior to the event’s start. Should she win the Roland Garros title she will rise to World No. 14.

Andreeva, who won the 2025 Indian Wells title as a 17-year-old, dropped just one set en route to the final. She snapped Marta Kostyuk’s 17-match clay-court winning streak with a dominant 6-1, 6-3 semi-final victory that avenged her loss to the Ukrainian in the Madrid final.

With 2000 Roland Garros finalist Conchita Martinez as her coach, Andreeva has claimed a tour-leading 35 wins this year.

She reached the Roland Garros semi-finals two years ago at 17, but was swept aside 6-3, 6-1 by Jasmine Paolini.

“Two years ago I would say that I didn't believe… I feel because I had that disbelief it interfered with how I played in the semis. But also, Jasmine just killed me on the court,” Andreeva said.

“Now I feel like I'm getting closer, I'm getting older, a little bit more mature every match I play.”

While Andreeva and Chwalinska are looking to lift the trophy early in their Grand Slam careers, 29-year-old Alexander Zverev must feel like he’s been waiting a lifetime for his moment. Squeezed between the late Big 3 era of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic and the early stages of the Big 2 era of Sinner and Alcaraz, the German has been in a constant fight for his seat at the Grand Slam table, despite being an Olympic champion and two-time ATP Finals winner.

Zverev finally got a break in the draw, and he’s made the most of it. The first seed he met was No. 27 Rafael Jodar, the 19-year-old Spaniard, in the quarter-finals. On Friday he took out No. 26 seed Jakub Mensik, who played imperious tennis to defeat Djokovic's conqueror Joao Fonseca in the quarter-finals but came out flat in the semi-finals.

Cobolli, 24, advanced to the final when countryman Matteo Arnaldi withdrew with a suspected virus shortly before their scheduled semi-final, which promised to be a celebration of the depth of Italian tennis and the foundation that the Federation has built to make the country a global tennis powerhouse.

By advancing to his first Grand Slam final, Cobolli is guaranteed to crack the Top 10 in the PIF ATP Rankings on Monday. Superstitious by nature, Cobolli has been using the same shower that was the favourite of 14-time Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal.

“I'm a little bit more crazy than others. I just go to the same restaurant, same menu, same shower," he said.

Last year Cobolli fell to Zverev in the Roland Garros third round and soon after pushed Novak Djokovic to four sets in the Wimbledon quarter-finals, his best result at the majors until this year’s Paris run.

Cobolli beat Zverev early in the clay swing in Munich, but lost the rematch in the Madrid semi-finals.

All is now set for a big championship weekend in Paris.