"You have to have very big ambitions to give your best every day," says Boisson on France 2's 8 PM news

© AFP

Adrien Guyot

le 07/06/2025 à 07h49

3 min to read

Boisson Roland Garros

Loïs Boisson made a splash at Roland-Garros 2025. Relatively unknown to the general public just a couple of weeks ago, the 22-year-old player defied all odds at Porte d’Auteuil to reach the semifinals of the Paris Grand Slam, despite being ranked outside the top 360 and entering with a wild card.

After her victories against Elise Mertens, Anhelina Kalinina, and Elsa Jacquemot, the tournament took on a new dimension for the Dijon native in the second week. Indeed, Boisson successively eliminated two top-10 players: Jessica Pegula (No. 3) in the round of 16 (3-6, 6-4, 6-4) and Mirra Andreeva (No. 6) in the quarterfinals (7-6, 6-3).

Guaranteed to break into the top 70 after the tournament, the Frenchwoman—who suffered a serious knee injury a year ago—saw her run come to an end in the semifinals, just one step away from the final, against world No. 2 Coco Gauff (6-1, 6-2).

A few hours after her tournament ended, Loïs Boisson was a guest on France 2’s 8 PM news this Friday, June 6, and answered questions from Laurent Delahousse.

"I haven’t fully processed the tournament I just had. I’m only starting to realize what happened—the semifinal just ended yesterday. But it won’t change much for me.

I’ll only keep the positives from these two weeks, even though I’m obviously a little disappointed I couldn’t do better yesterday (Thursday), but she (Gauff) was simply too strong for me. I’ve always had confidence in myself, and I had a great training week where I got to play with some of the players in the draw.

I’d never had the chance to train with those girls for a whole week before, so it gave me a lot of confidence. I started the tournament with confidence, and my goal was to go all the way, like in every tournament I play. Whether it’s Roland or another event, my goal was the same.

Owning your ambitions is inevitable in high-level sports. You have to have very big ambitions to give your best every day. I don’t hide it, and I’ll keep going.

I’ve always given 100%, even if sometimes it was probably too much. You have to know when to take rest days, to disconnect. When there’s minor pain, you have to know when to stop. But this injury (to the ACL) taught me a lot in that regard.

I was sidelined from the court and training for five and a half, six months. I couldn’t step on the court during that time. The crowdfunding was something my parents set up—I’m not really handling that side of things yet. We know high-level sports, especially tennis, comes with a lot of expenses, and there’s a whole team to pay.

The ‘Resilience’ tattoo—I got it after my injury, but it’s a word to live by no matter what happens in life. When things get tough, you have to stay positive, give everything to overcome them, and realize that with hard work, anything is possible.

I don’t feel pressure from expectations—on the contrary, it motivates me more than anything. I think it’s amazing. I’ll keep following the process I started years ago and do my best to go even further.

Anyone can win or lose. Winning Roland is a goal. I’ll give everything to win this tournament one day," Boisson elaborated on the evening news.