France's wild French Loïs Boisson frustrated No. 6 Mirra Andreeva on Wednesday with a 6-3 record in front of Roland Garros' craze and largely partisan crowd.
Andreeva repeatedly showed her frustration with the crowd, and excited fans chanted "Louis, Louis, Louis, waving the tri-colored flags, shouting during the game, and even applauding the Russian teenager's mistakes.
"It's incredible. Thank you for supporting me like this. I have nothing to say," Boisson told the family crowd. "I ran too much because I was nervous early on, but I struggled in the first set and it was so intense. I felt a little empty at the beginning of the second time, but I hung there and got the job done."
Boisson tore the ACL a year ago a week before her master's grand slams started and she couldn't accept the invitation to play. On Thursday, she will have a chance to make it to the finals.
"It's incredible given what happened last year and all the difficult moments I've experienced," Boisson said in a post-match interview.
The 22-year-old Boisson has become the first woman to reach the semi-finals in her first Grand Slam since Jennifer Capriati in the 1990 French Open. Boisson was also the first female wildcard to enter the French Open Semi-finals during the Open Age (since 1968).
She is also the youngest French semi-finalist in the Grand Slam since 1999 at Amelie Mauresmo in Wimbledon. The last French woman to win the championship at Roland-Garros 25 years ago was Mary Pierce.
Boyson will face third-place Coco Goff in the semifinals after the American star surpassed Sloppy and dropped the first set to beat Madison Keys 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-1).
The power fluctuations in the first set and the excellent shooting of both players are marked. Boisson found herself resting for a while twice, but fought back each time, haunting her Russian rival with heavy rotation and depth of terrain.
Andreeva was obviously nervous at the key points, trying to maintain her calmness and wasted a chance to end the scene at 5-3. Despite saving three fixed points and forcing the finale, she ended up handing the scene to Boisson with two consecutive backhand mistakes.
Andreeva responded strongly in the second set and led 3-0. But Boyson beat the game with a thunderous backhand title, drawing the roar of the lively crowd.
Andreeva received a warning after kicking out a routine forehand volley and angrily hit the stands. Then she quarreled with the referee, which gave Boisson a breakthrough point. At the next point, Andreeva double failure, never recovered.
"The first set was very intense, and at the beginning of the second set, I was really struggling, but I managed to reorganize and do it like that," Boisson said.
Boisson ranked 361st in the WTA rankings and is the third woman in the Grand Slam competition in the past 30 years. Neither Kim Clijsters (2009 US Open) nor Justin Henin (2010 Australian Open) ran.
Boisson will climb to at least 68th on Monday, reaching a career-high 152 last year before a knee injury. If she manages to be shocked by Gauff for the third straight time, that might be higher.
A seedless player has reached the French Open final twice in the past four years: 2021 final champion Barbora Krejcikova and 2023 Karolina Muchova.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.