{"id":965638,"date":"2026-05-17T01:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T01:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/965638\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T01:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T01:24:12","slug":"tennis-ukraines-elina-svitolina-sees-off-tenacious-coco-gauff-to-win-third-italian-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/965638\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis: Ukraine\u2019s Elina Svitolina sees off tenacious Coco Gauff to win third Italian Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis<\/a> world No. 10 Elina Svitolina<\/strong><\/a> will lift the Scudo for a third time at the Italian Open, after defeating two-time Grand Slam singles champion Coco Gauff<\/strong><\/a>, 6-4, 6(3)-7, 6-2, in the women\u2019s singles final at the 2026 Italian Open<\/strong> on Saturday (16 May).<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian star emerged victorious following two hours and 49 minutes of play at the iconic Foro Italico, after dropping the opening game of the first set to her higher-seeded opponent, putting her perfect record in clay court finals at jeopardy early in the match.<\/p>\n

While she trailed 2-4 at one point in the first set, Svitolina did everything she could to make sure that was a minuscule blip in an otherwise outstanding performance,\u00a0saving 14 of 17 break points<\/strong> faced throughout the match, while converting six of her own.<\/p>\n

She ultimately took the first set and seemed poised to take the second before Gauff mustered up a comeback of her own and forced a tie-break to determine the second set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A sudden momentum shift helped the North American star stay in the match, setting the stage for a decisive third set in what had become a thrilling tussle between two top-ten players.<\/p>\n

Capitalising on every mistake made by Gauff \u2013 whose service struggles reared their ugly head once more, resulting in\u00a0seven double faults<\/strong> \u2013 Svitolina held strong on centre court, racing to victory in eight games to win her first Italian Open title since 2018, and her third consecutive win against Gauff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very hard to believe it’s been eight years since I had this trophy,\u201d the triumphant 31-year-old said after the match. \u201cDefinitely was an extremely tough battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the tournament as a whole, Svitolina added: “I’m very happy with the way I could handle my nerves, not only today, but also throughout this tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s been tough, but I’m very happy with the way I’ve been playing, the way my body has been reacting on these tough matches. Just very proud of the effort.”<\/p>\n

Earning her fifth\u00a0WTA 1000-level tournament victory, Svitolina joined Poland\u2019s Iga \u015awi\u0105tek<\/strong><\/a> in the three-time winner\u2019s club at the Italian Open, successfully completing a giant-slaying campaign that featured wins against world No. 2 Elena Rybakina<\/strong><\/a>, world No. 3 \u015awi\u0105tek and world No. 4 Gauff.<\/p>\n

She also extended her clay-court finals record to 8-0, building on a strong history of success on the surface mere weeks before the 2026 French Open, where she\u2019ll look to spur a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu and run the length of the draw en route to her first-ever Grand Slam singles title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis world No. 10 Elina Svitolina will lift the Scudo for a third time at the Italian Open,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":965639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-965638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116587309533694424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}