Lois Boisson

Lois Boisson is the Dijon-born baseliner whose name became Open-era shorthand for the improbable. Born May 16, 2003 in Dijon and introduced to tennis at eight — after her father Yann, a 1980s pro basketball player, gave her an athletic foundation — she came up on clay before turning professional in 2021. She earned her first ITF title in 2022 at W15 Dijon and produced a 2024 breakthrough, winning the WTA 125 Saint-Malo and stringing together 18 straight ITF wins to climb to a then career-high No. 152 in May. Then the gut-punch: slated for a French Open wildcard, she tore her left ACL a week before Roland Garros at the 2024 Trophée Clarins.

Her game is built for the dirt. Boisson's heavy forehand — a mix of speed and spin — is especially handy on clay, as is her drop shot, while her two-handed backhand can produce magic down the line. She plays with clarity in shot selection; rather than overpower opponents with first-strike tennis, she hits with shape and smooth timing in both movement and execution. The slice is the dagger — on clay it negates incoming power and returns the ball with so much sidespin that even top players struggle to handle it. Fittingly, her idol is 14-time Roland-Garros champion Rafael Nadal, despite her playing right-handed.

The career-definer needs no embellishment. A wildcard ranked No. 361 playing her first Grand Slam, she reached the semifinals at her home major — the lowest-ranked women's Slam semifinalist in 40 years and the first wildcard to make the Roland-Garros women's semis in the Open era. En route she beat Elise Mertens, then stunned No. 3 Jessica Pegula from a set down and No. 6 Mirra Andreeva, before bowing out to eventual champion Coco Gauff. The run moved her nearly 300 spots — the biggest top-100 leap of the century — and she became French No. 1 on June 9, 2025.

She backed it up rather than fading. A few weeks later she captured her maiden WTA title on the clay of Hamburg, the result that pushed her into the top 50. That ascent carried to a career-high No. 34, reached February 2, 2026. In December 2025 she hired Carlos Martinez as coach after a trial begun during the Asian hardcourt swing — a tell that the next frontier is translating her clay identity onto faster surfaces, where the sample is still thin.