Sabalenka, Swiatek to meet in finals of Rome tournament
Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka (WTA: 2) and Poland’s Iga Swiatek (WTA: 1) will compete in the finals of the WTA 1000 tennis tournament with a prize pool of $ 5,509,771 in Rome on May 18th. The match is scheduled to start at 6pm.
Bookmakers prefer the No.1-seed, and their logic is clear. On the way to the finals, Swiatek did not give her rivals a single set. Moreover, Swiatek is considered the reigning ‘queen of clay’. Out of the ten previous head-to-head matches with the Belarusian athlete at the WTA tournaments, the Polish claimed victory in seven. The finals of the similar competitions in Madrid, held a fortnight ago, were also won by Swiatek – 7:5, 4:6, 7:6 (9:7).
The Belarusian tennis player has never reached the finals of the tournament in Rome before. This season, her path to the title match turned out to be much thornier than that of Iga Swiatek. She had to fight not only with her rivals, but also with back pain, because of which – as the Belarusian admitted – she even thought of withdrawing from the tournament. Nevertheless, Aryna Sabalenka consistently beat Katie Volynets of the US (WTA: 109) (4:6, 6:3, 6:2), Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine (WTA: 33) (6:4, 6:2), Elina Svitolina of Ukraine (WTA: 19) (4:6, 6:1, 7:6), Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia (WTA: 10) (6:2, 6:4) and Danielle Collins of the US (WTA: 15) (7:5, 6:2) and has a chance of success today. Aryna Sabalenka proved that the Polish athlete is not invincible on the clay court during the last year’s finals of the tournament in Madrid (6:3, 3:6, 6:3), so the representative of the Belarusian tennis school, of course, will do everything to repeat the outcome of that memorable match.
Two more Belarusians also competed in the Internazionali BNL d’Italia singles. Aliaksandra Sasnovich (WTA: 113) sheathed her racket at the 1/16 finals, while Victoria Azarenka (WTA: 24) finished her performance in the quarterfinals.
The tournament in Rome is held on clay courts and is one of the most important stages in the preparation of tennis players for the French Open – to take place from May 26th to June 9th. Last season, Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina claimed victory in the competition in the Italian capital.
