Live life to the full! Fanatic about @Arsenal, gigs, family & anything Brackley. Ex Captain of @BrackleyTownFC & @BrackleyRUFC Built & sold @VisibilityRM
A 24-year-old Polish tennis player arrived in Paris last week ranked 114th in the world, with no sponsors, no guaranteed income, and no certainty she could even pay for her hotel room.
She had to win three qualifying matches just to enter the French Open main draw. Prize money is only paid at the end of the tournament, so a Polish sports drink brand quietly stepped in and covered her hotel bill.
Her name is Maja Chwalinska. And today, she plays in the French Open final.
Before this tournament, she had won exactly one Grand Slam main draw match in her entire career. She had battled depression so severe that in 2021 she couldn't get out of bed. She underwent knee surgery in 2022. She spent years grinding through small tournaments across Europe just to stay afloat.
Then she arrived in Paris, won three qualifiers, and kept winning. Zheng Qinwen. Elise Mertens. Maria Sakkari. Diana Shnaider. Nine straight matches. One set dropped.
She is now the first qualifier in French Open history to reach the final. The last time a qualifier reached a Grand Slam final, it was Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open. Raducanu won.
By simply making the final, Chwalinska has earned more prize money than her entire career combined. The runner-up cheque alone is $1.6 million. If she wins today, she takes home $3.25 million.
One week ago she couldn't pay for her hotel room.
🚨🗣️ | Pep Guardiola Shocked on Arsenal fans Reaction towards Gabriel Magalhaes after missing the Penalty: 🤯
“I have to say something because I saw this and, honestly, it blew my mind. It blew my mind. We know how this business works. Usually, in a Champions League final, a player misses a crucial penalty against a top, top team like PSG, and the next day... it is a disaster for him. The social media, the media, it can be very, very cruel. Very ugly. You expect the anger, the threats, the terrible words. We see it all the time.
But what the Arsenal fans did for Gabriel? Wow. It is something else. Truly. To see a player fail in the most painful moment, and the response from the stadium, from the people, is just... pure love? I am told his shirt sales went up by three hundred and fifty percent in a few days. Three hundred and fifty percent! This is incredible. I have been in football a long, long time, as a player and a manager, and I have never seen anything like it. Never.
You know, you open Facebook, you open Instagram or Twitter, and the narrative is always the same. 'Arsenal fans are insufferable. They are the worst fanbase, they are annoying.' You hear this tag all the time. But I look at this gesture and I think, 'How?' How do they have this tag? If a fanbase can wrap their arms around a player like that, in the darkest moment of the club's history a trophy they have been dying to win for decades then everything we are told online is a lie. It is a massive misconception. They have been judged so harshly.
This shows me who they really are. It shows their class, their humanity, and their loyalty. To behave like this? It is not annoying, it is not insufferable. It is beautiful. They deserve incredible praise for this, because this is what football should be about”
Emmanuel Petit on Premier League clubs mocking Arsenal after the final defeat:
🗣️ “I have to say, I found it embarrassing.
The second Arsenal lost, some Premier League clubs couldn't wait to jump on social media and remind everyone about their European trophies.
That tells you everything.
Instead of supporting an English club representing the league on the biggest stage in club football, they were busy celebrating Arsenal's pain.
For me, that's not rivalry. That's insecurity.
Arsenal were 90 minutes away from doing something special, and rather than show respect, people were desperately searching through the history books for old trophies to post online.
Why? Because they were terrified of seeing Arsenal join that club.
Let's be honest, some of these clubs spent the entire season watching Arsenal compete at a level they couldn't reach.
The jealousy was obvious.
The moment Arsenal fell short, they treated it like they had won something themselves.
That's the mentality of people who would rather see Arsenal fail than focus on their own success.
The trophy may have slipped away, but the reaction from some rivals showed exactly how much Arsenal still live rent-free in their heads.”
A hundred thousand loyal fans couldn’t get tickets for the Palace game but this traitor and his sons spend all season slagging off Arteta and get to celebrate on the pitch with him and the players. That’s not right.
Today we think of everyone affected by the attack in Manchester on the night of the 22nd May 2017, and particularly the families who lost loved-ones, knowing that every single day of the nine years since has been hard for them.
We are still at their side and always will be. 🐝