Marta Kostyuk beat fellow Ukrainian Elina Svitolina 6-3 2-6 6-2 in the French Open quarter-finals, reaching the first grand slam semi-final of her career.

Kostyuk will face Mirra Andreeva for a place in Saturday's final, having maintained her unbeaten record on clay in 2026.

The 15th seed was simply too powerful for Svitolina for long periods of Tuesday's last-eight clash, and she started as she meant to go on by racing into a 3-0 lead in the opening set.

Kostyuk double-faulted to give up her break advantage in game seven, but she immediately recovered her composure to break again, with Svitolina making a couple of costly forehand errors in the very next game.

The momentum switched in the second set, though, as Svitolina served with far more consistency and broke in games two and eight – the latter in a gruelling four-deuce game.

The decider was more chaotic as the first five games all went against the serve, with Kostyuk getting three of those breaks before reeling off a commanding hold to love. 

Kostyuk broke once again in game seven, overpowering Svitolina in the baseline exchanges, before serving out the contest to better her previous best grand slam run – a quarter-final appearance at the 2024 Australian Open.

Data Debrief: Kostyuk still perfect on clay for 2026

Kostyuk has enjoyed a breakout clay-court swing, which she is hoping to cap with a French Open final appearance.

She is into her third clay-court WTA semi-final of the year (after Rouen and Madrid), more than she reached in her entire career prior to 2026 (Istanbul 2021 and Stuttgart 2024). 

She won the Rouen and Madrid titles, of course, and she is now 17-0 on clay this season. Since the WTA Rankings were first published in 1975, she is only the second player to start a year with 17 straight wins on the surface while outside the world's top 10.

Justine Henin was the previous player to do so, when she finished the 2005 season unbeaten on clay with a 24-0 record, claiming titles in Charleston, Warsaw, Berlin and at Roland-Garros.

Svitolina, meanwhile, has now made six French Open quarter-finals without ever appearing in the last four. That is the most by any player at a single grand slam (men's singles and women's singles) without making the semi-finals once, surpassing Helena Sukova at Wimbledon and Tommy Robredo at the French Open (both five).