Italian Open: Iga Swiatek rushes into pre-quarters after initial lagging

• Tennis News
• On the WTA results with

Iga Swiatek produced another mastery on clay as she routed Lesia Tsurenko 6-2, 6-0 in their third-round match at the Italian Open on Sunday. The Pole needed 76 minutes to grab the win. At the start of the match, the Ukrainian secured an early break and went up 2-0.

From that point on, the match turned on its head as Swiatek bounced back quite forcefully. Not only did she win the next six games in a row to take the first set 6-2 but she won the next six to complete a thumping of her opponent.

In the sixth game of the second set, Tsurenko had a game point but Swiatek’s dominance saw it being erased quickly. Swiatek hit 22 winners, 20 more than her hapless opponent. She also converted six of 10 break points. She won 68% of her first-serve points and 60% of her second-serve points.

She also won 79% points on return on Tsurenko’s second serve. Meanwhile, Marketa Vondrousova produced an upset over ninth seed Maria Sakkari in their round-of-32 meeting. The left-hander needed about an hour and a half to post a 7-5, 6-4 win for herself.

This is the second upset for the Czech in the tournament. Earlier, in the first round, she’d been the cause of 24th seed Bianca Andreescu’s exit from the event.

Italian Open: Rain, Marie Bouzkova startle Coco Gauff

After rain forced the abandonment of the rest of Saturday’s play, two remaining third-round matches were to be played on Sunday.

Of these, only one was eventually contested. Marie Bouzkova, the 27th seed, came from a set down to defeated sixth seed Coco Gauff, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. The Czech needed a little more than two hours for the win. Following Gauff’s departure, there are no top-10 seeds left in the bottom half of the draw in Rome.

Veronika Kudermetova, the 11th seed, is the highest-seeded player left. Lastly, 19th seed Madison Keys received a walkover into the round-of-16 of the Italian Open. Keys’ opponent, 14th seed Victoria Azarenka was forced to withdraw from the tournament after injuring her right leg. Photo Credit: Italian Open Twitter