Svitolina thrashes Halep for Italian Open title
Sports •
the french open at roland garros starts in just over a week and svitolina added roland garros is still a week away but this gives me confidence1 elina svitolina underlined her status as a top favourite for the french open by sweeping simona halep aside 6-0 6-4 to successfully defend her italian open crown on sunday1 but haleps hopes of overturning last years defeat to her 23-year-old opponent quickly evaporated in a completely one-sided encounter that saw the romanian fail to produce a real challenge1 svitolina the world number four has now successfully defended three career titles in baku dubai and also rome she also won in brisbane and dubai this season to take her 2018 title total to three1 the win also marked svitolinas 12th career title on what was her eighth final in succession1 its amazing that i could do this here a second time and defend said svitolina. this is something very very special1 congratulations to simona she had a great week of tennis1 in a repeat of last years final at the foro italico ukrainian svitolina seeded fourth was up against halep a day after the romanian top seed had ousted russian maria sharapova1 i cant make any predictions as its very tricky in paris but im sure i will enjoy the next tournament1 halep who was broken four times and lost the opening set in 19 minutes did not win a game until the start of the second 24 minutes in1 the world number one saved match point before bowing out after 67 minutes1 congrats to elina she played amazing halep said1 its like this court is now her home. but i didnt do so badly reaching the final again. i hope to be back next year1 maybe third time is lucky for me1 thanks to reaching the final in rome halep will take the top seeding for roland garros1