A first at Roland Garros
Ksénia Chasteau reached her first Grand Slam semifinal on 4 June 2026, beating Kgothatso Montjane 6-4 6-4 on the clay of Roland Garros. Two sets, two breaks that held, and a place in the last four secured before her home crowd in Paris. She is twenty years old.
The match turned on margins rather than drama. Chasteau took the opening set 6-4, holding her serve through the tight games and pressing on the South African's second delivery when the chance came. The second set followed the same shape. Montjane, an established and experienced opponent, pushed her in the exchanges, but Chasteau found the corners with her forehand and closed on 6-4 again. She did not surrender the initiative once she had it. The scoreline reads even, yet the control belonged to her.
What gives the result its weight sits behind the numbers. In January 2021, Chasteau lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident. She picked up a racket for the first time that September. From those first strokes to a Grand Slam semifinal is a span of under five years, a rise measured not in seasons on tour but in the short distance from a hospital to a show court in Paris.
The line of a career
That trajectory has been steep and deliberate. Chasteau moved quickly through the junior and development ranks of wheelchair tennis, and her progress carried her into senior competition at an age when most players are still learning the tour. Roland Garros, her home Grand Slam, has become the stage where each step forward is registered. A semifinal here is the clearest marker yet of where she stands among the sport's best.
The win over Montjane also settles a question of temperament. Reaching the last four demanded that she close out a match against a rival with far more experience of these occasions, and she did so without wavering in the decisive games. That composure, more than any single shot, is what separates a promising player from one who wins the matches that matter.
For a French player, doing this in Paris adds a particular charge. The crowd knows the story; it has followed the arc from accident to comeback, one of the more remarkable in recent sport. On this afternoon the noise was earned by the tennis alone.
Five years ago she had not held a racket. Now she has held her nerve, and her place, in the last four.
