Egyptian trailblazer finds her groove again after tough year
Mayar Sherif can pinpoint the moment it all began to click again, when the confidence that deserted her for more than a year finally returned at the most opportune of times this week.
It was not simply fortuitous, given the work the former world No.31 had put in, but it was a long time coming in a season where gruelling three-set defeats had snowballed.
Back at Roland-Garros, the site that has delivered the bulk of her career highlights, a sense of comfort on these red, crushed-brick courts played no small part in her qualifying campaign, which culminated in a return to the main draw on Thursday following a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Belgium’s Greet Minnen.
➡️ Roland-Garros 2026 women's singles draw
The resounding result followed a three-set second-round win over former semifinalist Martina Trevisan, which sparked a revival in her self-belief when it mattered.
Eight of her previous 12 matches that had gone the distance this season had ended in defeat. This marked a turning point, which she hoped would carry her back inside the top 100.
“I was getting stuck there for a while and I felt like it was yesterday's match in the third set where I felt like I found that feeling, that mental feeling, where I just went after the match in the third set,” Sherif said.
“I focused on every point, and I got that feeling that I didn't feel in a while. I told my coach after the match, ‘That's it. I got it, I know how I need to play, I know how that mentality has to be on the court’.
“I think I translated that today and I closed out very well because a lot of matches that I lost lately, I would win the first set and the second set would get complicated even though I'm controlling everything. I got that confidence to kill it today and that's what I'm very happy for.”
She struggled to remember when she had last felt such a feeling, despite having reached a pair of WTA 125 semifinals on clay this year in Antalya and Dubrovnik.
“I honestly don't know," she said. "I haven't felt that since at least April or May last year. It's tough, it's been a tough time for me mentally.”
“I think I'm really hungry to get back to where I was before in terms of ranking. I feel that I have the level. I mean, I got there. I definitely have the level, so it's just about translating it on the court, working on those mental things, because the tennis, I have it. It’s just about the head.”
The win booked the 30-year-old’s sixth start among the field of 128 at an event in which she has reached the second round for three straight years.
Having become the first Egyptian woman to make the main draw of a Grand Slam in Paris in 2020, Sherif has proudly followed in the footsteps of Tunisian former world No.2 Ons Jabeur, the most successful North African and Arab player.
Sherif, only a year younger than Jabeur, is proud to have helped raise the bar and is upbeat about the future for fellow players from the region.
Another – 22-year-old Yasmine Kabbaj – this week made waves in her home tournament in Rabat where she became the first Moroccan to win a WTA match in 15 years, before reaching her first tour-level quarterfinal.
“I feel like girls, especially the girls actually, are starting to believe more in themselves,” Sherif said. “They see Ons, they see me, they see that we have totally different games.
“I feel like Yasmine has a similar game to mine. She likes to hit spinny balls and I feel like just seeing other people come from your community doing well, I feel like more generations are going to come out and they're going to be top 200, many more.
“I think it just needs time and it just needs more organisation," she added. Now we have more sports, more sports management – at least in my country – so there’s more sponsors and more money flowing into tennis. I hope that just translates to a new generation that believes in themselves because the talent, we have it. It's just about the translation from that young age to being a professional.”
In other final-round women’s qualifying matches on Thursday, former world No.3 Sloane Stephens secured her 14th Roland-Garros main draw berth, while fellow American and third seed Ashlyn Krueger ensured her return to a third straight main draw in Paris.
Polish eighth seed Maja Chwalinska and 15th seed Alina Korneeva won through to their respective first Roland-Garros main draws.
Austrian second seed Sinja Kraus, unseeded Elena Pridankina and China’s Guo Hanyu also booked their respective main draw debuts at a Grand Slam.
ROLAND-GARROS
18 May - 7 June 2026
