Dayana Yastremska, who is the tennis player-singer Jasmine Paolini will face at Roland Garros

The draw for the Roland Garros main draw did not particularly smile on Jasmine Paolini, who already in the first round will face an absolute top athlete, world number 45 Dayana Yastremska. The two have faced each other seven times in their careers with a balance strongly in favor of the Azzurra (six wins in seven matches) but it was in France, in Lyon, that the Ukrainian’s only success came, winning 6-4, 7-6(3) at quarterfinal level in 2022.

Born on May 15, 2000 in Odessa and currently living in Lyon due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dayana Yastremska has won three tournaments on the major circuit, triumphing while still very young in 2018 in Hong Kong and in 2019 in Hua Hin and Strasbourg. She also has two successes on the Challenger circuit to her credit, the second of which was very recent, in Parma on Saturday, May 16 (beating Barbora Krejcikova, winner of Roland Garros in 2021 and Wimbledon in 2024, in the final, beating Paolini herself in England, among others).

Dayana Yastremska’s life, however, does not focus solely on tennis. The Ukrainian athlete has also lent her face to several advertising campaigns and has never given up her passion for singing, so much so that she released a number of musical singles between 2020 and 2024, also entering the charts and becoming a sensation on YouTube and social networks, where she has far exceeded 200 thousand followers.

Turning back to tennis, the Odessa-based athlete-singer’s career had risked an abrupt halt in 2021 when she was temporarily suspended from competition early in the season after testing positive for mesterolone. However, on June 22, 2021, the International Tennis Federation had ruled that Yastremska was not responsible for the positive result and that she could return to competition immediately.

The best ranking of Jasmine Paolini’s next opponent is the 21st place she reached in January 2020. At the Slam level she played a semifinal at the Australian Open, stopping only in the face of China’s Zheng Qinwen (later defeated by Aryna Sabalenka in the final). Curiously, in all her other appearances at the four major tournaments on the calendar she has never gone beyond the third round.

In the 2025 edition, her path at Roland Garros began against Australian wild card Destanee Aiava, beaten 7-5, 6-1. This was followed by a victory against Russian Diana Shnaider with a double 7-5 while another Russian athlete, Liudmila Samsonova, beat her in the third round with a clear 6-2, 6-3.