Top seeded Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Emma Navarro, Elena Rybakina, and Zheng Qinwen all safely progressed in the top half of the draw at the Internazionali d’Italia in Rome on Friday, but Daria Kasatkina and Donna Vekic were both 2nd-round casualties.
Victoria [Mboko] played great tennis. She forced me to play like that. So full credit to her. I was pretty composed because I felt, like, I was playing the right way in the first, just not necessarily connecting on some shots. I just felt, like, if I just started to land more balls in, it would go my way. Coco Gauff
World No 1 Sabalenka easily saw off Anastasia Potapova, 6-2 6-2, and, half an hour later, she bumped into her and the Russian stuck a joking middle finger up at her vanquisher, prompting the grinning Belarusian to snap a picture.
“If she beat me, I would probably do the same,” a laughing Sabalenka told reporters afterwards. “She’s a nice girl, and we are good friends. I can understand how she’s feeling right now. But there’s no tension, it’s just jokes.”
Sabalenka was all business on court as the Madrid champion extended her winning streak to 7 matches, landing 70% of her first serves, and winning 80% of those points, while she struck 18 winners in the process.
“I had to figure out the court, and how I can use my game in the best way on this surface,” the No 1 seed said. “This match was more like me trying to adjust to the surface.”
In the next round, she will face No 31 seed Sofia Kenin, who advanced, 6-3 6-0, past Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, another Russian.
4th-seeded Coco Gauff had to come from a set down to beat 18-year old Victoria Mboko in her opener on Friday in Rome
© Clive Mason/Getty Images
Meanwhile, Coco Gauff, the 4th-seed, had to work hard to get past fast-rising teenager Victoria Mboko, and win her opening match on Friday night, holding off the Canadian qualifier, 3-6 6-2 6-1, after an hour and 43 minutes of play.
“Victoria played great tennis,” Gauff said after her win. “She forced me to play like that. So full credit to her.
“I was pretty composed because I felt, like, I was playing the right way in the first, just not necessarily connecting on some shots. I just felt, like, if I just started to land more balls in, it would go my way.”
18-year-old Mboko is making quite a name for herself, playing in only her 2nd career WTA 1000 main draw. She ended last year ranked 350, but she has since risen up nearly 200 spots to a career-high of No 156.
Gauff has twice reached the semi-finals in Rome, in 2021 and 2024, and lost to eventual champion Iga Swiatek on both occasions, while the 21-year old American has not lost a match to a player ranked outside the Top 100 since a defeat to Kenin, her fellow Grand Slam champion, in the 1st-round of Wimbledon in 2023.
“I didn’t know much about her [Mboko] before, but I’ve been following her since Miami,’ said Gauff, who improved to 6-0 in her Rome opening matches. “I think she’s a great player. I knew it was going to be a tough match.
“The ranking difference [between us] looks different, but she’s playing top-level tennis. I approached the match that way. It’s not a case of underestimation. I knew she was going to come out there and play great.”
Gauff broke Mboko to love for a quick 2-0 lead on Friday, and it looked as if it could be a routine win, but the Canadian surprised her with defensive prowess and well-deployed shots that pulled her back into contention.
Double-faults began to creep into the American’s game, and the teenager rocketed out to a 5-2 lead, and, after back-to-back doubles by Gauff at 5-3, Mboko garnered set point, before putting-away a net-cord forehand to pocket the set, sending murmurs through the Campo Centrale crowd.
Gauff broke Mboko all 4 times the qualifier served in the second, swiftly levelling the match at a set apiece by reducing her unforced errors from 18 in the first set to just 7 in the next.
She was totally focused by the decider, as her double-faults completely disappeared, as Gauff won the final 6 games of the match to deny Mboko an upset in the teenager’s first career meeting against a Top 10 player.
Gauff finished the match with 25 winners, nearly double that of Mboko, who had 13, and converted 9 of her 13 break points as she polished off a splendid turn-around win.
Next up for Gauff is No 32 seed Magda Linette from Poland, who posted a 1-6 6-4 6-1 come-back of her own over former World No 3 Maria Sakkari from Greece earlier in the day.
Gauff leads Linette 2-1 in their head-to-head, but the Pole won their most recent meeting, 6-4 6-4, at the Miami Open a couple months ago.
Having finished as runner-up in the women’s doubles at the Italian Open the past 2 years, Gauff is hoping to go one better with the help of another exciting youngster in 19-year old Alex Eala of the Philippines, this year.
Together, they have accepted a wild-card entry into the WTA 1000 doubles event in what will be their first-ever tournament as a pair.
Eala made her breakthrough only a couple of months ago when she stunned 2017 French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko, reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys and 5-time Grand Slam winner Swiatek en route to reaching the semi-final of the Miami Open.
She surged into the Top 80 of the rankings on the back of that run, and has since climbed to No 64 in the live rankings, but she suffered an early exit from the singles in Rome, beaten in straight sets by Marta Kostyuk.
Marta Kostyuk shook hands with Russian-born Australian Daria Kasatkina in Rome after their 2nd-round match, which the Ukrainian won
Ukraine’s Kostyuk and Daria Kasatkina are no strangers to facing off against each other, and Friday was their 7th encounter since 2020, but this time, it was different.
Kasatkina had won their previous 3 matches, all of which ended without a handshake because of the war in Ukraine, prompting several Ukrainians choosing not to shake hands with Russian opponents.
Kasatkina, though, a vocal critic of the invasion who also faces persecution in her home country for being openly gay, is now playing under the Australian flag, and, after Kostyuk converted her 6th match point to defeat the 14th seed, 6-4 6-2, there was no hesitation from either player as they walked to net and, with a nod of the head and respectful eye contact, shook hands.
“When someone not only tells the truth – calling Russia the aggressor – but also acts on it, that deserves respect,” Kostyuk wrote on social media. “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.”
The war in Ukraine remains a stress point for Kostyuk, who says that when she reads the news from her homeland, it is hard to process that she is ‘actually safe, physically’, and when she returns to Ukraine, she is ‘mesmerised’ by what she sees, in particular, the indomitable spirit of the people.
“You have shops that don’t have glass, because in the night there was a missile attack or a drone attack,” she said. “They put wooden covers [on the windows] that say ‘We are working, please come in’. There’s shattered glass on the floor and people just keep going. It’s amazing.”
Kostyuk advances to meet Leylah Fernandez, the No 24 seed, after the Canadian dispatched Croatian qualifier, Antonia Ruzic, 6-4 6-0.
Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen dispatched Olga Danilovic in straight sets on Friday at Foro Italico in Rome
© Marco Bertrello/AFP via Getty Images
Top 10 players Zheng Qinwen and Emma Navarro also were quick winners as they each got their campaigns underway on Friday.
Zheng, the No 8 seed from China, took an hour-and-a-half to defeat Olga Danilovic of Serbia, who came into the clash as a dangerous floater, ranked a career-high No 33, and just outside the seedings.
The 24-year-old has won 11 of her last 14 matches, including a title at WTA 125 Antalya and a final at WTA 250 Rouen, but Zheng won the first 5 games of Friday’s showdown, then held her nerve in a closer second set, which featured 5 breaks of serve.
The reigning Olympic Gold medalist, who finished the match with 17 winners to Danilovic’s 8, meets Magdalena Frech, the 26th seed from Poland, who ousted former Rome finalist Victoria Azarenka from Belarus, 7-5 6-4.
Frech beat Zheng in their first career meeting, on the grass of Eastbourne in 2022, but the Chinese got her revenge on the hard courts of Cincinnati last year.
Later in the day, 10th-seeded Navarro posted a 1 hour 25 minute win over lucky loser Kamilla Rakhimova, ranked 85 and from Russia, who took advantage of her second chance after getting into the main draw to notch up a 1st-round win over China’s Wang Xinyu.
The American, though, stopped the lucky loser’s run, 6-1 6-3, after taking charge in their first career meeting, firing 25 winners, more than double to Rakhimova’s 12, while also converting 5 of 11 break points.
Navarro’s next match will be a 3rd-round meeting with No 22 seed Clara Tauson, who advanced when her opponent, Katie Volynets from the USA, retired with the score standing at 7-5, 4-1 in the Dane’s favour.
Bianca Andreescu upset Donna Vekic, the No 20 seed, to win her second match in a row at the Italian Open on Friday
WTAtennis.com
Elsewhere, former Rome champion Elena Rybakina and Bianca Andreescu picked up wins, and the two Grand Slam champions will now face each other in a re-match of their Madrid meeting from earlier this month.
In the evening, Rybakina had to twice fight back from a break down in the first set before clinching a 1-hour and 25-minute victory over top German Eva Lys.
The 2022 Wimbledon champion of Kazakhstan won her only clay-court WTA 1000 title at Rome in 2023, and has collected two WTA 1000 titles overall, with her other one coming that same year at Indian Wells.
Canada’s Andreescu has also won two WTA 1000 titles, both in 2019 at Indian Wells and Toronto, and is still alive for a third after her 6-1 3-6 6-2 upset win over No 20 seed Donna Vekic of Croatia on Friday.
The bad news for Andreescu is that Rybakina has won all 3 times they have played, including in the 2nd-round of Madrid a couple weeks ago.
