Roland-Garros 2025: Lois Boisson, the not-so-unexpected emergence of a clay court specialist

The young Frenchwoman became the second wild-card player to qualify for the quarter-finals at Porte d'Auteuil.

A patch of blue sky for French women's tennis, and a flash of lightning on the Parisian clay courts. A revelation at Roland-Garros, Frenchwoman Lois Boisson is playing her first Grand Slam quarter-final on Wednesday, June 4, in her first appearance in a main draw, two days after knocking out the world number 3. A blossoming that those who know her were waiting for, as she seems programmed to perform well on clay.

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Because the Dijon player, an unexpected guest at this stage of the tournament, has been performing well on her favorite surface since the beginning of the fortnight. "When I was young, I played a lot on this surface. My style of play goes well with it. It's where I feel best," she explained after her resounding victory against Jessica Pegula on Monday. "She has a typical clay court game [...] When she has the ball to attack, she goes for it, when she has to be patient, she is. You can see that she has really grown on this surface," said Arnaud Clément, former world top 10 and franceinfo: sport consultant.

For Laurent Rochette, a former top 200 player in the world and close to Florian Reynet, Lois Boisson's coach, her youth on the surface and the inspiration of Rafael Nadal helped develop her game, which is perfectly suited to clay. "From what I understand, it's a mix of growing up on clay and idolizing Nadal, so I think she started wanting to scratch the ball very hard like him. To do that, you need physicality and specific playing intentions, and she has developed them since she was little," he explains. Her development has particularly concerned her physical qualities, necessary to perform well on clay.

"She's always had this desire to hit the ball, and to hit the ball, you have to be physically strong. On clay, it's impossible to hit the ball hard without having the physical strength."

Laurent Rochette, former world top 200 and coach

to franceinfo: sport

"She's very athletic and she moves extremely well, it's still a surface on which to approach sliding, she does it very well, it helps a lot," adds Justine Hénin, seven-time Grand Slam winner and France Télévisions consultant, for whom the athletic dimension is what makes Lois Boisson particularly effective on the surface.

Facing Jessica Pegula , the 22-year-old impressed with the power of her forehand, powerful and topspin, which spins the ball at more than 3,000 revolutions per minute, and in which we can see the influence of the Majorcan, victorious 14 times in Paris. "She has a real clay court forehand, a bit like some Spanish players, with a ball that squirts," assured Guy Forget to AFP, also comparing her game to that of Lorenzo Musetti. An area of ​​​​the game also highlighted by Justine Hénin: "She has a forehand that is rather atypical in women's tennis and on clay, where she has a little more time to anchor herself in the ground and be able to deploy her power, use her trajectories, there it squirts and it hurts on the forehand side." But the Belgian champion also mentions "her slice" which "makes her game quite complete" .

Because in addition to her athletic power and her forehand, Lois Boisson has also shown variety in her game, which has caused many problems for her opponents since her entry into the competition. "When you change the rhythm, that's what you have to imagine, the ball will no longer arrive at the same time, your positioning will no longer be the same, the height of the ball will be different too, and that, for players who like to play in rhythm, Boisson's type of game poses a lot of problems" , decodes Justine Hénin. An impression confirmed by Arnaud Clément: "Her game is terribly annoying for her opponents, we see it, her domed balls, her much more rounded trajectories."

In the spotlight with her remarkable career, Lois Boisson is finally enjoying her moment of glory with the general public, after being delayed by several injuries in recent years. This confirms a potential already detected by those who have been close to her. "When I saw her play, I found that on clay, she was already playing top 50 at almost that time," says Laurent Rochette, who met her for the first time at the beginning of 2024, during her series of 23 victories in 24 matches played on clay before her serious injury at the Clarins Trophy. " I've been talking about her for two years, and I've been saying it for a year now, she's the future of women's tennis worldwide. Not Lois per se, but what she represents: that is to say, a big physique, a tennis where we evolve. She's the 2.0 version of women, in the sense that there we have a woman who puts spin on her forehand like the guys, who serves like the guys, who slices like the guys, who has a real sense of the game."

"That doesn't mean she's going to bother them all, because there are players who have such power that it will hurt her too. She's not going to play that way in every Grand Slam and on every surface. But at this Roland-Garros, that's what hurts."

Justine Hénin, France Télévisions consultant

to franceinfo: sport

Will this already successful Major on Parisian soil be the first in a series, or a one-off feat? "For me, it's not just a flash in the pan [...] If her health is good, there's no problem with her regularly playing second weeks at Roland-Garros," asserts Laurent Rochette. "I don't see how it can be a 'one-shot', unless there's a major psychological or physical problem."

"She'll be playing at Roland Garros, ideally if everything goes well, without injury, for the next ten or fifteen years. She'll have about ten opportunities. Lois is a clay court specialist, so she still has plenty of room to improve her game, and she really wants to go for it" a victory in Paris, her agent Jonathan Dasnières de Veigy assured on franceinfo Tuesday. The next date is Wednesday, for her quarterfinal against Mirra Andreeva. Perhaps before many others in the future?