The next Emma Raducanu: How Polish qualifier, 24, stands on the brink of echoing Britain’s last Grand Slam champ – and why she may not make the same mistakes

As the tournament has gone on, a few more patches have begun to appear on the outfits of Maja Chwalinska.

Look back at the opening-round victory for this remarkable Polish qualifier, only the second one to reach a Grand Slam final alongside Emma Raducanu, and there’s nothing. Just a slate blue top and a pair of black shorts. Not a sponsor’s logo in sight.

At least after that, she managed to pick up a green Lacoste top with official Roland Garros branding on it. She wasn’t given it. She’s still not sponsored.

This is, after all, the 24-year-old world No 114 who was worried she might not be able to pay for her hotel bill the longer she remained in the tournament. Even in this fortnight for the underdogs, no one expected her to get this far, let alone Chwalinska.

But on Thursday night, as she fell to the floor after beating Diana Shnaider to seal her place in the final against Mirra Andreeva, her green top was now speckled with a couple of logos: Oshee, the Polish hydration drinks brand, who Chwalinska revealed has stumped up the cash for her hotel, and trading company XTB.

These temporary ‘patch deals’ can often earn players an extra £10,000 to £20,000 per match. For the biggest stars like Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, their permanent ones can be into the millions.

‘I mean, there is no story, really,’ she replied when asked about her changing outfits. ‘I’m not sponsored, so I guess that’s the story.’

You imagine that will change after this weekend for this coal miner’s daughter. She’s already tripled her career prize money by reaching the final, which guarantees a payday of £1,200,000. If she wins, make it £2,400,000. Her ranking will jump to at least 21st in the world and even 14th if she beats Andreeva. This run to the final came too late for automatic Wimbledon qualification but her performances here will surely guarantee her a wildcard. Remarkably, she will then be seeded if she gets one.

Raducanu’s life would never be the same again as soon as she clutched that US Open trophy to her chest five years ago. Within days, she had a multi-million deal with Tiffany. Ones with Dior, Evian and Porsche followed.

The money rolled in but at the cost of losing any sort of control of her future. ‘In my life everything changed upside down,’ reflected Raducanu ahead of the French Open. ‘I didn’t really think I had the most handle over the situation. I was being pulled left, right. I didn’t really know what was going on.’

You hope that Chwalinska will be able to maintain her grip. She is six years older than Raducanu was when she triumphed and has been around tennis much longer. She has been through difficult times, taking a break for mental health reasons in 2021. ‘I just couldn’t get out of bed anymore,’ she said this week. ‘I was just, like, lifeless, to be honest. I didn’t know if I was going to come back. I’m happy that I did.’

In many ways, Chwalinska’s journey at this French Open is even more remarkable than Raducanu’s shock Grand Slam win. Raducanu was a breakthrough star but had still reached the fourth round at Wimbledon before heading off to the US Open. As we have seen this week in Paris, Grand Slams can often become home to teenage sensations. People were talking about her.

No one was talking about Chwalinska, who has spent her entire career slugging it out in the lower reaches and rarely showed any signs of being able to play the sensational tennis she has done here.

This is only the eighth tour-level main draw she’s ever played. She never won more than two matches in any of them before this. She’d never beaten anyone in the top 50. It’s only her third Grand Slam main draw and had only previously won one match, at Wimbledon four years ago. She’s been knocked out of qualifying in 13 other Slams, starting at the Australian Open back in 2020.

And yet here she is, this self-proclaimed tennis nerd, who spent hours watching Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal – ‘I was Roger’s No1 fan. Sometimes I come back to these old matches and I watch them play and it feels like poetry’ – and is playing such intelligent tennis of which her old idols would be proud with an almost innate ability to anticipate her opponent’s next move.

‘The story of her being the qualifier and the first one to get to the final of Roland Garros is amazing but it’s more than that,’ said TNT pundit Mats Wilander. ‘She has touched people’s hearts as she plays a style of tennis that people can understand. She’s played so smart. Tennis is a game of chess, it’s not a game of hitting it harder than each other. You’re trying to move each other around. She plays with spin, drop shots and she really understands the game unbelievably well.’

The biggest challenge, if she is to become the new Raducanu, is dealing with what comes next.