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Sunday, May 11, 2025

Wk.19- Rome without an "I"

Rome may be eternal, but Iga Swiatek *in* Rome in 2025? Not so much.







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*WEEK 19*


[Rome Q/1st Rd.-3rd Rd.]


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RISERS: Marta Kostyuk/UKR and Diana Shnaider/RUS
...Kostyuk's run in Madrid ended with a two tie-break loss to Aryna Sabalenka in a whiz-bang straight sets match. After a nice first week in Rome, she'll get another shot at the world #1 in the Round of 16.

Kostyuk has been in fine form on the Italian dirt, allowing just one game vs. Alex Eala, and winning 6-4/6-2 in successful matches over both Dasha Kasatkina and Leylah Fernandez.

Having already posted her best Madrid result (QF), she's having her best Rome run, as well. In case it might matter, Kostyuk's best RG result has been a 4th Round in '21.

Meanwhile, while Shnaider's brief-but-intriguing run with Dinara Safina as coach has already ended, the Hordette continues to make her Top 10 push. In Rome, she opened with a 6-0/6-0 win over Caroline Dolehide, then handled Jaqueline Cristian 3 & 3 to reach the 4th Round in the event for the first time.



Shnaider has dropped from #11 to #13 in the "live" rankings, and will need to keep winning to eat into the deficit (-743) she currently encounters behind #10 Paula Badosa.
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SURPRISES: Emma Raducanu/GBR and Hailey Baptiste/USA
...Raducanu isn't generally known as great clay court player, but that's mostly been because it seemingly took *forever* into her pro career before she even *played* her first match on the dirt. That didn't happen until 2022, the season *after* she'd already reached a slam Round off 16 on grass and won a hard court major. With her two wins this past week in Rome, though, the Brit is 14-9 in her pro career on clay, including 4-1 (so far) this season.

Raducanu has played into the second week in her second appearance in Rome (after a 1r loss in '22), defeating Maya Joint (in 3 sets), Jil Teichmann and Veronika Kudermetova, knocking off the Hordette by dropping just *one game* in the 2nd/3rd sets combined after dropping a 7-5 1st.



Meanwhile, Baptiste has proven to be one of the most improved players of '25. In Rome, a year after falling in the Q1, she earned her Italian Open debut with qualifying wins over Storm Hunter and Teichmann. In the MD, she upset Anna Blinkova and Liudmila Samsonova, despite being unable to convert on five MP chances at 5-3 in the 3rd vs. the latter. Baptiste quickly recovered and broke the Hordette to close out the match on MP #7 in the following game.

Baptiste's run ended at the hands of Elina Svitolina in the 3rd Round, but only after she'd rallied from a set down to force a 3rd, then broken the veteran at 5-3 when she was serving for the match (and held five MP).



Baptiste is set to jump significantly from her #90 position, cracking the Top 75 for the first time.
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VETERAN: Maria Sakkari/GRE
...any comeback from the Greek will likely come in small steps. Though she exited in Rome in the 2nd Round, at least she's seemingly pointed in the right in her second Tom Hill era, even if past history does make one question how long this initial post-change surge will last once the "new-ness" of the old/new situation wears off.

Thing is, that may have happened mid-match vs. Magda Linette in Rome.

Sakkari had qualifed for the MD, twice coming back from a set down to defeat Chloe Paquet and Maja Chwalinska. She got past Belinda Bencic in the 1st Round when the Swiss retired, but led Linette 6-1/4-3, 30/love before her house of cards collapsed and she was sent packing.


Sakkari's week was still noteworthy enough to mention, but the optimism remains quite tentative. Her slam seed streak will end at 23 consecutive majors come Roland Garros (at a live #92, she should still be the MD, though), but at least she'll be able to try to (maybe?) kick off a new seed-defeating streak in majors?
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COMEBACKS: Naomi Osaka/JPN and Bianca Andreescu/CAN
...might Osaka and Andreescu *both* have discovered something important -- and familiar -- in 125 events?

After early exits in Madrid, both past slam champions dropped down to play 125 tournaments in Week 18, Osaka in Saint-Malo (FRA) and Andreescu in Vic (ESP). Both won titles, Osaka in singles and Andreescu in doubles. They've taken their momentum and run with it through the first week in Rome.



Over the past week, Osaka kept her winning streak going with a straight sets win over Sara Errani, and back-to-back triumphs from a set down vs. Viktorija Golubic and Marie Bouzkova.

Could she be -- yikes! -- a dark horse for real success in Paris, considering the "favorite" probably really isn't that anymore?

Meanwhile, Andreescu opened with an expected win over young Italian Federica Urgesi, then upped her game and posted consecutive Top 20 upsets of #19 Donna Vekic and #12 Elena Rybakina, defeating the Croatian in three sets and the Kazakh in straights. Andreescu hadn't had a Top 20 win since 2023, and both victories successively became the Canadian's best wins since she topped a then-#10 Maria Sakkari in Miami two seasons ago.


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FRESH FACES: Peyton Stearns/USA and Victoria Mboko/CAN
...it's worth remembering that Stearns has been proficient on clay in her young career, reaching consecutive 3rd Rounds in her two RG appearances, and playing both of her tour-level finals (w/ a win in Rabat in '24) on the dirt. This week, in her Rome MD debut, the Bannerette has posted three wins (so far), over Nuria Brancaccio, Anna Kalinskaya and #6 Madison Keys, the latter her second career Top 10 victory and biggest to date.

Her other Top 10 victory came earlier this year on hard court in Dubai over Zheng Qinwen.



18-year old Mboko continues to shine in 2025. Already this year, she's been the winner of five ITF titles, won 22 straight matches at the ITF level (w/o dropping a set throughout), cracked the Top 200, picked up her first tour-level MD match win in Miami (over Camila Osorio, then she had MP for another over Paula Badosa the next round) and made her BJK Cup debut.

In Rome, she was a rare qualifying wild card in the event who actually reached the MD, doing so with wins over Cristina Bucsa and Kamilla Rakhimova. Mboko then followed up with another 1000 MD win, over Italian Arianna Zucchini.



The Canadian took the 1st set vs. Coco Gauff in the 2nd Round before the world #3 rallied to win in three.

Mboko is 33-4 on the year, and will make her Top 150 debut following the Rome event.
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DOWN: Dasha Kasatkina/AUS
...it's nice that Dasha had some fun on the court early in Rome, because it didn't last once the groundstrokes counted.

Kasatkina fell 6-4/6-2 to Marta Kostyuk in her 2nd Round opening match, and even got to shake hands with her Ukrainian foe for the first time in quite a while. It apparently didn't happen simply because Kasatkina dropped her Russian citizenship for an Australian passport, as past Hordettes who've changed representation (Gracheva, Avanesyan) didn't receive similar post-match treatment from their Ukrainian opponents, but instead was because Kostyuk found Kasatkina sufficiently anti-war enough to meet Kostyuk's standards (even if she still would have been banned from the tour had Kostyuk had her way a while back) and she's respected her resilience in the face of issues back home associated with her sexuality.



Before the match, Kostyuk had signaled a detente, posting on social media:

"When someone not only tells the truth... calling Russia the aggressor -- but also acts on it, that deserves respect," she said. "Daria Kasatkina has clearly spoken out against the war and made the decision to give up her Russian sports citizenship. That takes courage -- and I acknowledge it."

Afterward, she said a bit more (WTA tour site).

Kasatkina has had a lot going on in '25, so hopefully this moment will be another step in settling things down a bit, maybe leading to more success between the lines.

So far, Kasatkina has seen her ranking fall from #9 to a "live" #17 this season, going 11-11 and only advancing to the QF in one event (Week 2 Adelaide, which she followed up the an AO 4r) thus far.
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ITF PLAYER: Francesca Jones/GBR
...the Brit tied her biggest career title at the $75K challenger in Prague, picking up career win #9 with a 6-3/6-4 win over Ena Shibahara in the final.

It's Jones' second $75K crown this season, during which she's gone 22-7. She's currently at a "live" #112 in the rankings, which would be a new career high.
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JUNIOR STARS: Emerson Jones/AUS and Annika Penickova/Kristina Penickova (USA/USA)
...junior #1 Jones, 16, grabbed her second pro title in a $35K in Fukuoka (JPN), defeating Himeno Sakatsume 7-6/6-4 in the final.

The Aussie was a girls' singles finalist at the AO and SW19 in 2024.

Meanwhile, the 15-year old Penickova twins, the '25 AO junior doubles champions, claimed their first pro title as a pair in Monastir (TUN), taking a $15K crown with a straights sets win in the final over Arina Arifullina & Ines Murta.

Kristina also reached the singles final, a career first in a pro event, but lost in three sets to Pastry Laia Petretic. The twins were set to meet in the 2nd Round, but Annika handed Kristina a walkover into the QF.
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WHEELCHAIR: NED World Team Cup
...well, she's back. And so were the Dutch in the World Team Cup.

Finally having completed rehab from scheduled hip surgery, Diede de Groot made her season debut in the wheelchair team event in Antalya, going a combined 4-0 in singles as the Netherlands picked up a 34th women's crown in the annual event.

The only thing that didn't go off in de Groot's return was a singles match with longtime rival (and current #1) Yui Kamiji, as though Japan reached the final the reigning AO champ faced off with Aniek Van Koot in the "#1 singles" (Van Koot is #2, w/ de Groot currently #3) -- with Kamiji winning 1 & 2 -- while de Groot defeated Saki Takamuro to force a deciding doubles match.

It was there that Japan (Kamiji/Takamuro) rallied from 5-3 down in the 2nd to get to a Match Tie-break, which was won by de Groot & Van Koot 10-4 to clinch a 2-1 victory in the final tie. De Groot provided the clincher on MP with a winning backhand.

@teamnlinsta

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[Rome Q/1st Rd.-3rd Rd.]



1. Rome 2nd Rd. - Iga Swiatek def. Elisabetta Cocciaretto
...6-1/6-0. On Pope day, the white smoke wafting above Rome wasn't just from Vatican City. It was also from the Italian Open's Campo Centrale as the real Swiatek was sighted and a leftover hat from the Pope John Paul II Classic Collection was readied to be refit for a certain defending champion.

But, ah, not so fast...



Rome 3rd Rd. - Danielle Collins def. Iga Swiatek
...6-1/7-5. As it turned out, the gathering of Cardinals in Vatican City to elect Pope Leo XIV wasn't the only necessary conclave this past week in Rome. An Iga Conclave at least *should* have been on the agenda, as well, because, you know, it happened again.

Of course, by now a loss from the former #1 and three-time Rome champ (Iga now has nine L's in early May, after having nine in all of '25) isn't really a shock these days. They're coming more and more often, in uglier and uglier fashion. At least this time it was against a big hitter (not a first-time occurrence, and TC commentator CoCo Vandeweghe noted her bafflement as to why Swiatek never offered up a different look on return or elsewhere, i.e. taking a step to one side, or one back at the baseline to give herself more time... a non-course correction which has now lingered through multiple Swiatek coaching regimes).

Of course, though this loss did come vs. Collins, Swiatek had previously been 7-1 against the Bannerette. Their last meeting had come on clay at the Olympics. You probably remember that one as the match in which Collins crossed after to Swiatek's side of the court upon retiring in the 3rd set and having a "private conversation" in which she told her not to be "insincere" (Collins said she "didn't need the fakeness") when commenting about the abdominal injury that forced the early end of the match.

No such theatrics were in play here, largely because Swiatek was never in the match. Again. Just like in her exit match in Madrid vs. Coco Gauff. At times, Swiatek was truly awful here, especially on serve. She had a 36% first serve percentage in the 1st set (and won just 2 of 14 second serves), and though she improved on her first serve in the 2nd she was still a winner on just 31% (4/13) of second serves in what would be the final (though closer) stanza. Meanwhile, Collins converted on 8 of 10 BP chances.



While Swiatek was being throttled early in the 2nd set, Wim Fissette's expert audible coaching advice to Iga was to "play to win." I'm still not sure if that's a little pathetic, or just sad. I guess we'll find out over the course of what remains of this spring and into the summer. Meanwhile, mental coach Daria Abramowicz offered encouragement from the stands, though it didn't help much.

As Swiatek potentially faces difficult personnel decisions down the line, it might be wise for her to consider the recent words of Andrea Petkovic about the lines that must be recognized between "friends" and "employees" before deciding just where her future may be headed.



As a result of her early exit, Swiatek will fall to (at least) #4, and maybe an additional spot should Jasmine Paolini complete a dream run in Rome. And she still has RG title points to defend, so the floor has not yet been established. The lower seed in Paris could mean an earlier-than-expected match (QF?) with a top seed, but the question there would be whether Swiatek will make it that far in the first place.

Her title/final drought is about to reach its one-year anniversary, and in her last four matches (save an easy win over Elisabetta Cocciaretto in Rome) the Pole has lost her first love set on clay in six years (vs. Madison Keys, who'd never even won a set off her in three matches on the surface), lost three sets by 6-1 scores (two vs. Coco Gauff, who'd been 1-11 in matches -- 0-10 in sets on clay -- in the series before winning their last three match-ups) in which twice she'd trailed 5-0, had her worst defeat in six years (vs. Gauff) and has been possitively run over in a pair of straight sets losses.

What next? The trip to Paris could prove to be very redemptive and restorative, or truly worrisome (far, far more than what we've seen so far, and some of that has been cover-your-eyes worthy).
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2. Rome 1st Rd. - Anastasia Potapova def. Dayana Yastremska
...2-6/7-6(6)/6-3. Yastremska led 6-2/3-0, and held a MP at 6-5 in the 2nd set TB before Potapova stormed back to win a tour-best *third* match this season after being down MP.


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3. Rome 3rd Rd. - Clara Tauson def. Emma Navarro
...3-6/6-0/6-4. The Dane is back (just in time for a slam upset or two?), and Navarro bears the brunt of such a reality as Tauson grabs her fourth career Top 10 victory (second this year, following her upset of Sabalenka in Dubai). Tauson ended things with a very respect-worthy forehand winner.


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4. Rome 1st rd. - Antonia Ruzic def. Tyra Caterina Grant
...3-6/6-3/7-5. Grant makes her debut under the Italian flag, in Italy. It went pretty well, then it didn't.



The 17-year old took the 1st, then led 5-3 in the 3rd, holding two MP on Ruzic's serve before getting the chance to serve it out on her own a game later. Instead, she never won another game.


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5. Rome 1st Rd. - Petra Kvitova def. Irina-Camelia Begu
...7-5/6-1. Kvitova may still be quite a ways away from anything resembling top form in her post-maternity leave comeback, but the Czech finally managed to get her first win since her return. It came in match #5 of '25, some nineteen months since she last recorded a win vs. Wang Xiyu in Beijing on October 1, 2023.

The Czech couldn't make her 2nd Round match, handing a walkover to Ons Jabeur.


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6. Rome 1st Rd. - Jessica Bouzas Maneiro def. Ann Li
...6-3/5-7/7-6(3). After squandering a match in the early-going in Madrid, Bouzas Maneiro gets back on the proverbial horse in Rome.

Of course, even a comeback win from the Spaniard had an iffy prior moment that made it possible. After breaking Li's serve when the Bannerette served for the 2nd set at 5-4, Bouzas Maneiro immediately lost her own serve in the next game as things soon went to a 3rd. In the decider, Li twice served for the win at 5-4 and 6-5, only to see Bouzas Maneiro force and win a tie-break to get her first Rome MD victory.
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7. Rome 1st Rd. - Marta Kostyuk def. Alex Eala
...6-0/6-1. In Eala's first outing since leading Iga Swiatek by a set and break in Madrid, she records just one *game* vs. Kostyuk.
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8. $75K Saint-Gaudens FRA Final - Lois Boisson def. Tatiana Prozorova
...7-6(4)/6-0. Ah, the sweet smell of success.

Pastry Boisson improves to 6-2 in career ITF finals, but this is her first title since a knee injury (in the Paris 125, whose '25 version will be held in Week 20) prevented her Roland Garros MD debut as a wild card last year. Before that horrible timing, Boisson had been a rising star in '24, winning three ITF crowns in March and her maiden 125 title.
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9. $50K Lopata GEO Final - Carol Young Suh Lee def. Ekaterine Gorgodze
...6-7(7)/7-6(3)/6-4. The Northern Mariana Islands native, playing under a U.S. flag, wins her second title in three '25 challenger finals. It's Lee's biggest title by far, as her other two finals had come in $15K tournaments.
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10. $35K Platja d'Aro ESP Final - Ane Mintego del Olmo def. Jenny Durst
...3-6/6-1/6-3. After fighting through injuries, the 2021 Wimbledon girls' champ (the first from ESP) wins her first ITF title since 2023.

Now 21, hopefully this means del Olmo will soon be tour-bound, with her "accessories" look taking its rightfully unique place next to that of Diana Shnaider, Emiliana Arango and Bianca Andreescu (she's still sporting the hair tie on her arm, after all).


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1. $50K Indian Harbor Beach USA Final - Lia Karatantcheva def. Arina Rodionova
...6-2/6-7(6)/6-3. Karatantcheva, of the large Bulgarian tennis family, wins her first pro singles title on her third attempt in a final. Naturally, it comes against another tennis sibling.

Lia has already won five WD crowns, including two in '25.
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*WHEELCHAIR WORLD TEAM CUP WINNERS, w/ host nation*
2025 [TUR] - Netherlands
2024 [TUR] - China
2023 [POR] - Netherlands
2022 [POR] - Japan
2021 [ITA] - Netherlands
2020 DNP
2019 [ISR] - Netherlands
2018 [NED] - Netherlands
2017 [ITA] - China
2016 [JPN] - Netherlands
2015 [TUR] - Netherlands
2014 [NED] - Netherlands
2013 [TUR] - Netherlands
2012 [KOR] - Netherlands
2011 [RSA] - Netherlands
2010 [TUR] - Netherlands
2009 [GBR] - Netherlands
2008 [ITA] - Netherlands
2007 [SWE] - Netherlands
2006 [BRA] - Netherlands
2005 [NED] - Netherlands
2004 [NZL] - Netherlands
2003 [POL] - Netherlands
2002 [ITA] - Netherlands
2001 [SUI] - Netherlands
2000 [FRA] - Netherlands
1999 [USA] - Australia
1998 [ESP] - Netherlands
1997 [GBR] - Netherlands
1996 [AUS] - Netherlands
1995 [NED] - Netherlands
1994 [GBR] - United States
1993 [AUT] - Netherlands
1992 [BEL] - Netherlands
1991 [USA] - Netherlands
1990 [USA] - Netherlands
1989 [USA] - Netherlands
1988 [USA] - Netherlands
1987 [USA] - Netherlands
1986 [USA] - Netherlands






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All for now.
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