Djokovic Claims Sixth Italian Open Title

Tennis - ATP Masters 1000 - Italian Open - Foro Italico, Rome, Italy - May 15, 2022 Serbia's Novak Djokovic celebrates with the trophy after winning the final against Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Tennis - ATP Masters 1000 - Italian Open - Foro Italico, Rome, Italy - May 15, 2022 Serbia's Novak Djokovic celebrates with the trophy after winning the final against Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
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Djokovic Claims Sixth Italian Open Title

Tennis - ATP Masters 1000 - Italian Open - Foro Italico, Rome, Italy - May 15, 2022 Serbia's Novak Djokovic celebrates with the trophy after winning the final against Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Tennis - ATP Masters 1000 - Italian Open - Foro Italico, Rome, Italy - May 15, 2022 Serbia's Novak Djokovic celebrates with the trophy after winning the final against Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

Novak Djokovic won his sixth Italian Open title on Sunday after a straight-sets victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas, 6-0, 7-6 (7/5) in Rome, while Iga Swiatek won her fifth straight tournament by dispatching Ons Jabeur.

World number one Djokovic saw off underwhelming Monte Carlo Masters champion Tsitsipas to claim the last major tournament before Roland Garros gets underway later this month.

The 34-year-old won his first tournament of the season and confirmed his return to form after an opening few months of the season dominated by Covid-19 vaccination controversy.

"I've been building my form for the last couple of weeks and like the previous years I knew that my best shape on the clay is usually coming around Rome time," Djokovic said on the court.

"So it couldn't be a better time coming into Roland Garros with a title."

Sunday's clash was a rematch of the pair's final at last year's French Open final but had little of the drama of that five-set thriller won by the Serb in Paris.

Djokovic made surprisingly short work of Greece's Tsitsipas, who had also reached the semi-finals of last week's tournament in Madrid and still leads the men's tour for wins this season.

Ranked fifth in the world, Tsitsipas was taken apart in the first set and looked oddly reluctant to take on Djokovic, but put up more of a fight in the second right until he threw away the set after serving for the match, succumbing in the tie-break without much resistance.

An emotional Djokovic then spoke to the crowd in Italian, telling them that they were the reason he had such a good record there and revealing his son Stefan was playing in his first ever tennis tournament, AFP reported.

He later beamed with pride as he revealed Djokovic junior had claimed the honors at a small club competition back home in Serbia.

"My son actually won the tournament. It's a sunshine double today," Djokovic told reporters.

Iga Swiatek said she was going to treat Roland Garros as "any other tournament" after beating Jabeur 6-2, 6-2 to retain the women's title.

World number one Swiatek dropped to her knees in tears of joy after winning her 28th match in a row, and will be red-hot favorite in Paris.

"I'm going to treat it as any other tournament, I think it's going to be fine and I'm going to be able to keep it that way," said Swiatek.

"I already know that I did some great stuff this season, so I feel like I can just play freely and not think I have to win."

The 20-year-old Pole has dropped just one set in her last 20 matches and calmly dealt with Jabeur in a largely one-sided final in Rome.

Tunisia's Jabeur had made history last week after becoming the first Arab or African woman to win a WTA 1000 title but could not extend a career-best 11-match winning streak against her relentless opponent.

Jabeur had come into her first Rome final on a roasting Foro Italico center court on the back of two thrilling comeback wins over Daria Kasatkina and Maria Sakkari.

And another unlikely comeback bid looked to be on when, a set down, she had three break points in game seven of the second set to take it to 4-3, only to lose the game after wasting another break chance at deuce.

"When she doubled faulted at deuce I was like 'why didn't she do that a point or two points before?'," said Jabeur.

"I did everything I can, I hit every corner of the court."

Jabeur has moved up one place in the world ranking to sixth after reaching her second straight final and remains a force for the French Open.



Coco Gauff Comes Back at US Open and Beats Elina Svitolina

USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
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Coco Gauff Comes Back at US Open and Beats Elina Svitolina

USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)

Coco Gauff was not aware that she'd lost five consecutive matches against opponents ranked in the top 50. She was not sure exactly how many points in a row she'd dropped — 11, it turns out — to give away the first set against Elina Svitolina in the US Open’s third round on Friday.
Here, then, is what was entirely clear to Gauff at that moment: “I needed a reset.” So before the second set, the 20-year-old from Florida went to the bathroom, changed part of her outfit and splashed water on her face. Then Gauff went back on court and extended the defense of her first Grand Slam title by turning things around to beat the 27th-seeded Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, The Associated Press reported.
“Felt like a new person coming out,” the third-seeded Gauff said. “I just didn’t want to leave the court with any regrets.”
After making mistake after mistake early on at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gauff managed to reel off nine of 11 games in one stretch and won again despite losing the opening set, something she did three times en route to claiming the 2023 trophy at Flushing Meadows, including in the final against Aryna Sabalenka.
“It was in my mind today. It gave me a lot of confidence,” Gauff said, “just because it felt like déjà vu a little bit.”
On Sunday, Gauff will face No. 13 Emma Navarro, one of her teammates at the Paris Olympics, for a berth in the quarterfinals. Navarro eliminated Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
“I did a good job of neutralizing her serve and just playing really aggressive from the baseline and pushing back against her groundstrokes,” Navarro, who is from South Carolina and won an NCAA title for Virginia, said about that matchup last month. “And then always getting one more ball back in the court.”
Navarro advanced Friday with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory over No. 19 Marta Kostyuk. Other women's fourth-round matchups set up in the afternoon were No. 7 Zheng Qinwen vs. No. 24 Donna Vekic, and No. 26 Paula Badosa vs. Wang Yafan. No. 2 Sabalenka was set to play No. 29 Ekaterina Alexandrova at night, with the winner to face No. 33 Elise Mertens, who outlasted No. 14 Madison Keys in three sets.
The first men’s fourth-round pairing that was set up was No. 6 Andrey Rublev against No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov. No. 8 Casper Ruud will meet No. 12-seeded Taylor Fritz.
Zheng-Vekic is a rematch of the gold medal match at the Summer Games four weeks ago; Zheng won that one.
Vekic beat Gauff in the third round at the Olympics, part of Gauff's recent drought against top-50 foes. That also was part of a recent slump that saw Gauff win just five of her previous nine matches.
Such a contrast to a year ago, when Gauff won 18 of 19, and 12 in a row, along the way to two tuneup titles on hard courts and then the championship at the U.S. Open that made her the first U.S. teenager to triumph at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams in 1999.
By the conclusion of one set against Svitolina, it seemed as if another loss might be in the offing. Gauff’s totals were 16 unforced errors — nine on backhands — and just seven winners. She put only 45% of her first serves in. She went 0 for 3 on break points. She allowed Svitolina to claim 19 of the 28 points that lasted more than four strokes.
All of those numbers got better across the last two sets as Gauff tried to be more aggressive with her forehands and be more careful with her backhands. And something else changed, at the behest of her coaches: Gauff got the partisan crowd more involved.
Svitolina said afterward she was bothered by an ankle injury picked up last week
“I feel like she started to go (for) more a little bit. But to be fair, I didn’t play the way that I wanted to play. ... Then she started to be more alive," said Svitolina, a three-time Slam semifinalist. "And, of course, the crowd was behind her."
Everything began to change for Gauff on Friday after 1 hour, 10 minutes, when she broke to lead 4-2 in the second set, smacking a cross-court forehand winner. She celebrated with a yell of “Come on!” and raised her left hand to wiggle her fingers and ask the spectators to get louder.
Soon that set belonged to Gauff, who closed it with a 94 mph ace, shook a fist and shouted.
In the third, with UConn women’s basketball stars Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd sitting in her guest box at Ashe, Gauff broke right away, then held to go up 2-0 with the help of one 38-stroke point that she took when Svitolina sent a backhand wide.
Soon it was 5-1 for Gauff, whose only late wobble came when she served for the match at 5-2. She wasted three match points and got broken there. But Gauff broke right back to close things out.
“I’m glad that I had that match,” Gauff said, “because I think it just makes me match-tough and gets me ready, probably, for future challenges.”