Looking for a surprise men’s champion to emerge at the 2026 French Open? You’re a fan in the wrong era.
Since 2005, the Coupe des Mousquetaires championship trophy has been the exclusive property of the Big Three (Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer), plus Carlos Alcaraz for the last two years and Stan Wawrinka in 2015. If you aren’t destined to become a multi-Slam winner, you aren’t winning the French Open.
However, the two-plus decades leading up to Nadal’s first win in 2005 featured the five biggest surprise men’s winners in the tournament’s history. Three unseeded winners. The two youngest title winners. The Roland Garros champion with the worst ranking. Meet the five most unexpected French Open winners.
Who were the most surprising French Open men’s champions?
Honorable mention: Surprises who weren’t surprises
For those who enjoy debating seeding decisions made 98 years ago: Henri Cochet was inexplicably the No. 15 seed when he won the French title in 1928.
Cochet, one of the “Four Musketeers” who powered France to tennis dominance in the late 1920s, had won the French title in 1926, was the reigning Wimbledon champion, and had dominated the spring events across Europe. Cochet was the first men’s winner at the current Stade Roland Garros site.
Don McNeill won the French championship as an unseeded player in 1939, but that comes with an asterisk. There were only two seeds in what was a 55-player event as World War II loomed.
#5 - Michael Chang (1989)
When Chang dropped the first two sets of his fourth-round matchup against top-seeded Ivan Lendl, the at-the-moment odds of Chang winning the 1989 French Open must have been something like a million to one.
Lendl was a three-time French Open champion and ranked No. 1 in the world. Chang was just 17 years old and seeded 15th. No American had won in Paris in 34 years.
What happened next defied all odds.
Chang rallied to beat Lendl in five sets in one of the signature French Open matches of all time. Chang won despite leg cramps so severe that he resorted to an underhand serve at one juncture. Chang famously won a match point when Lendl double-faulted while Chang stood on the service line.
The against-all-odds run was just getting started. Chang nearly fell behind two sets to one in the semifinals against respected Soviet clay-courter Andrei Chesnokov, but rallied to win in four. He did fall behind two sets-to-one in the final against No. 3 seed Stefan Edberg, but won the last two sets and the match to complete his miracle run.
At the time, Chang and the aforementioned Cochet were the worst-seeded players to win at Roland Garros. At 17 years and 110 days, Chang is still the youngest men’s player to win a Grand Slam title.
(Bonus knowledge: Chang demolished fellow 17-year-old Pete Sampras in the second round by an eye-popping score of 6-1, 6-1, 6-1).
#4 – Mats Wilander (1982)
Wilander made the unlikely jump from French Open boys champion in 1981 to champion of the main event in 1982. He was the youngest men’s player to win a Grand Slam at the time at 17 years, 293 days.
He was also the first unseeded player in the Open era to win the French Open men’s title. (At No. 18 in the world, the always-insightful Wilander would have been seeded in current Grand Slam formats).
Wilander had to earn his unlikely crown. He beat four of the top five seeds back-to-back-to-back-to-back in the final week of the tournament. He rallied past No. 2 seed Ivan Lendl in five sets in the fourth round – an apparent pre-requisite for teenagers aspiring to win the French Open. He beat No. 5 seed Vitas Gerulaitis in four sets in the quarterfinals.
The win against No. 4 seed Jose Luis Clerc in the semifinals is remembered for Wilander insisting on replaying a match point after a questionable call in his favor. He capped his springtime in Paris with a four-set win against Guillermo Vilas in the final.
#3 – Albert Costa (2002)
It truly was a fairy tale week for Costa. How many guys can say they won the French Open on Sunday and then got married the following Friday?
Costa beat his best man – 1998 French Open finalist Alex Corretja – in the semifinals. Costa was supposed to be the underdog against another fellow Spaniard – Juan Carlos Ferrero – in the final. The players split the first two games, and then Costa reeled off 11 games in a row to claim a 6-1, 6-0 lead. Costa finished off the match in four sets to complete his unlikely run.
Costa never previously advanced past the quarterfinals at a major. At No. 20, he replaced Chang as the worst-seeded player to win at Roland Garros.
#2 – Gaston Gaudio (2004)
When your post-championship remarks include this sentence, "Losing the French Open final with two match points isn't easy against anyone. Imagine losing to me," it’s safe to say no one expected you to win.
As the years passed, Gaudio’s surprise run stands out even more as the last Roland Garros winner before Rafael Nadal began his run of 14 titles in 18 years starting in 2005.
Even after impressive straight-set quarterfinal and semifinal wins against No. 12 seed Lleyton Hewitt and No. 8 seed David Nalbandian, Gaudio was a massive underdog in the 2004 final. His opponent was fellow Argentine Guillermo Coria, the No. 3 seed and the dominant clay-court player in the year leading up to the event.
Gaudio entered the tournament ranked No. 44 in the world. He had never previously gone past the fourth round at a major. He never would again.
For two-and-a-half sets, there were no signs that Gaudio would win this major, either. Coria led by two sets and was serving with a 40-0 lead at 4-4 in the third set when he was seemingly beset by nerves and leg cramps. Gaudio took advantage, winning the third set and rolling through the fourth.
Coria regained his nerve and twice served for the match in the fifth set. He even held two match points at 6-5, but misfired on potential winners on both. Gaudio kept his game together just enough to win the deciding set 8-6 to complete one of the most unexpected French Open title runs.
#1 – Gustavo Kuerten (1997)
Guga eventually won three times at Roland Garros, so it’s easy to forget just how out-of-the-blue his first French Open title was.
Imagine if Ignacio Buse – he’s a 21-year-old from Peru currently ranked around 60th in the world – took out Musetti, Djokovic, and Sinner in back-to-back-to-back five-setters and then beat Alcaraz in straight sets in the final to win this year’s French Open. That’s basically what Kuerten did in 1997.
Kuerten was a little-known 20-year-old at the start of the 1997 French Open. He had never been past the second round at a major. He had not advanced past the third round of any tour-level event.
Kuerten started to turn heads in Paris when he beat 1995 French Open champion Thomas Muster in five sets in the third round. He followed up with a five-set fourth-round win against Andrei Medvedev, who would play in the 1999 French Open final.
He took out defending champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov in yet another five-setter in the quarterfinals. After all that drama, the final against two-time Roland Garros champion Sergei Bruguera was anticlimactic. Kuerten romped in three sets.
Kuerten’s triumph was a milestone for many reasons. He became the first men’s Grand Slam champion from Brazil. He was the first men’s player to win a notable title using then-new, now-universal polyester strings. And at No. 66, he was – and still is – the worst-ranked player ever to win the men’s title at the French Open.
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