Prior to this year’s French Open, Poland’s Maja Chwalińska had won one Grand Slam match in her career, was ranked outside the top 100 and had 500-to-1 odds to win Roland Garros prior to the first round. On Thursday, the 24-year old upset No. 25 seed Diana Shnaider in the semifinal to reach the women’s final.
The Roland Garros runners-up receive $1.6 million, meaning Chwalińska has already roughly tripled her career prize money in this tournament alone—her earnings previously totaled $864,000. That may sound like a lot, but she first appeared in a major qualifying draw more than six years ago at the 2020 Australian Open. Between travel, lodging and equipment, tennis players rack up expenses that can drain their funds quickly.
“I actually struggled to pay for the hotel [this week], because you know that we get the check after the tournament,” Chwalińska said in a press conference after her fourth-round win over France’s Diane Parry.
In the quarterfinals and semifinals, Chwalińska wore a patch on her outfit endorsing OSHEE, a sports nutrition and beverage company. As Sportico previously reported, players can be paid more than $10,000 for wearing patches during high-profile matches.
“The Polish company OSHEE, they actually will help you with [paying for lodging], which is great. I’m very grateful for that.”
