Before Marta Kostyuk stepped on the court this morning, a Russian missile hit a building near, just 100 meters away from her parents’ Kyiv home. Hence, when she emerged victorious in an all-Ukrainian quarterfinal at the French Open, the win carried weight far beyond tennis. And when the match was over, Kostyuk couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her face. 

“I’m incredibly proud of myself today,” she said in her on-court interview as her voice cracked. “I think it was one of the most difficult matches of my career. This morning, 100 meters away from my parents’ house, a missile destroyed the building. It was a very difficult morning. I didn’t know how this match was going to turn around for me. I didn’t know how I would handle it.”

Marta Kostyuk defeated Elina Svitolina 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 to reach the semifinal of the tournament for the first time in her career and dedicated the win to the people of her country, who have been suffering every waking moment due to the Russia-Ukraine war. 

“My biggest example is Ukrainian people,” she said. “I woke up in the morning and I looked at all these people who woke up and kept living their lives, kept helping people who are in need. I knew a lot of Ukrainian flags would be here today.”

Kostyuk’s journey to the semi-final of the French Open 2026 has been one of the highlights of the tournament. She arrived on a 12-match winning streak, ranked 15th in the world, having won the Rouen Open and then the Madrid Open, a WTA 1000 title, in the weeks before Paris. She had defeated Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-1 to advance to the quarter-finals. After that, she beat Svitolina. The winning streak is now up to 17. 

What is even more impressive is where Kostyuk was six months ago. After losing an exhibition match to Svitolina in India last December, she told her coach, Sandra Zaniewska, she was considering quitting tennis entirely. 

“I kind of hit rock bottom. I told her that it feels like I’m literally shedding my skin. Like it’s coming off, and I have to rip it, and it’s very painful because you hit these very deep, emotional things that are difficult to process. I felt like I’m coming to the point where I’ve tried everything that there is,” Kostyuk had said in a recent interview. 

At the time, she was ranked 26th. The results did not match her level. She and Zaniewska hired an analytics firm after losing at Miami in March. It suggested her 2026 performances merited a top-ten ranking. 

“I was like, ‘Yes Sandra, it’s great, but where are the results? I’m not even close. The math is not mathing,’:Kostyuk said. After the Madrid title, Zaniewska delivered her response with a smile. “See, I told you. Just wait.”

The deeper journey has taken much longer than a few months. Marta Kostyuk caught the tennis world’s attention at 15 when she reached the third round of the 2018 Australian Open. It was no secret that the talent was there. The mental aspect was. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the pressure compounded in ways that had nothing to do with tennis. She has openly discussed how those years have impacted her and even spoken of suicidal ideation in 2022, which she found very challenging to deal with. She eventually approached her mother and told her that she needed a therapist.

“I made the decision in just a matter of days. I was like, ‘OK, this is not good, I need to deal with this, and that’s it.’” That decision, alongside her Christian faith and her work with Zaniewska, became the foundation for everything that has followed in 2026. 

“I don’t think it’s possible to change without being conscious about it. It definitely took me a lot of years to generally change my perspective on life and on tennis and on myself,” she said.

Her 74-year-old father remains in Ukraine. She visits a couple of times a year, driving from Poland in a journey that can take between 10 and 17 hours. She has practiced through air raids, with drones and explosions audible in the distance. One morning, during the most important game of her life, a missile fell close to her parents’ house. She played anyway, and she won! The tears at the net were no surprise. They were the only appropriate response. 

Mirra Andreeva, the world No. 8 and the player Kostyuk beat in the Madrid Open final, stands between her and a Roland Garros final.

Marta Kostyuk faces Mirra Andreeva again

The semi-final match has more than just a tennis element to it. Marta Kostyuk, like all Ukrainian players on the WTA tour, does not shake hands with Russian or Belarusian opponents, a policy adopted after the invasion. 

The final between the two here was of great interest, not for what occurred on the net, but for the things that did not occur. Kostyuk won the title and did not mention Andreeva in her victory speech. 

She was direct about why. “Whether I win or I lose, I never had a problem acknowledging my opponent. But in that moment when I’m on the stage, and I give a speech, I want to be compassionate with people in Ukraine, who are almost daily being bombarded by Russia and Belarus. People are dying, people are suffering. It’s a terrible, terrible situation, and in that moment, my heart is with these people, so I just cannot.”

In Paris, the dynamic will repeat itself. Andreeva has only dropped one set in five rounds and is coming off a commanding win against Sorana Cîrstea in the quarterfinal, 6-0, 6-3. Both players have met twice in their careers before, with Kostyuk winning on both occasions. 

The two players now meet again at a Grand Slam, with a place in the Roland Garros final at stake. Kostyuk is coming into her game in a way no one could have guessed on the evening she told her coach in India in December that she was considering retiring from the sport altogether. 

She did not walk away. She is now two wins from a Grand Slam title.