Svitolina stuns Swiatek; Ruud reaches Italian Open final

Elina Svitolina booked her place in the Italian Open final after a hard-fought 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 victory over world number three Iga Swiatek.

Svitolina will face third seed Coco Gauff in the final, who earlier secured her spot with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Romania’s Sorana Cirstea.

Svitolina has now beaten Swiatek twice this year, after also beating her in three sets in the quarter-finals at the Paribas Open in March.

“The feeling is just unreal to be after so many years here again in the final,” Svitolina said after beating Swiatek in 2 hours and 14 minutes.

“It’s such an amazing feeling to do it in such a great way, I think.”

Swiatek’s attacking game produced 28 winners, eight more than Svitolina, but it was undermined by 50 unforced errors as the Ukrainian stayed more composed to dominate the deciding set.

The seventh seed’s run to the final also included a hard-fought quarter-final victory over second seed Elena Rybakina.

Svitolina saved 11 of 16 break points in the semi-final, including all five she faced in the final set.

Her overall win-loss record against Gauff is 3-2 after wins against the two-time Grand Slam champion at the Australian Open and in Dubai.

Meanwhile, Casper Ruud reached the final of the Italian Open after dismantling Italy’s Luciano Darderi 6-1, 6-1 in a rain-interrupted match and setting up a potential title showdown with Jannik Sinner.

Norwegian Ruud, a specialist on clay, dealt with flamboyant Darderi with the minimum of fuss, even after having to wait nearly two hours to restart a match he was already winning easily.

A huge downpour paused, but had no impact on, Ruud’s march to his first final since winning in Stockholm in October last year.

“It’s my 10th semi-final I think in a Masters 1000 and it was his first so you try to use that experience to your advantage and I think I did that well today,” said Ruud.

“He was maybe a little bit stressed, a little bit nervous of the occasion, but I tried to stay focused and kind of in my own tunnel vision.”

When play was stopped Ruud was 4-1 up and at advantage in game six of the first set, which he immediately won after the restart on centre court in Rome.

Not including the rain interruption Ruud took little more than an hour to see off Darderi to win an tour-leading 140th match on clay since the start of 2020, in which time he has won more tournaments on the surface than any other ATP player.

Such was the comprehensive nature of his victory there will only be a small delay to Sinner’s semi-final against Daniil Medvedev.

Rudd hasn’t won a single set in any of his four matches with Sinner, who destroyed him 6-0, 6-1 in the last eight here last year in one of the most one-sided matches ever seen at the Foro Italico.

“It will be a tough match no matter who it is, either it will be a guy who cannot lose it seems like or it will be Daniil who won this tournament before, so both are great players,” added Ruud.

“If it’s Jannik it will be another test for me and hopefully I can get some sort of revenge from from last time we played.”

Agencies