Jasmine Paolini beats Co Gauff in the Italian Open final to become the first home winner in 40 years
Cnn
–
Jasmine Paolini defeated Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-2 in the Italian final in single female open on Saturday to become the first Italian player to win the tournament in 40 years, before repeating the feat in the double Sunday final.
In doing so, Paolini became the first woman since Monica Seles in 1990 to win the titles in single and double at the Italian Open, and the first player to do so in any tournament in the WTA 1000 series since Vera Zvonareva in Indian Wells in 2009.
With Italian President Sergio Mattarella present for the match against Gauff, Paolini transported the energy of the crowd at home and looked at a class above his opponent to claim what is undoubtedly the biggest victory of his career.
“It doesn’t seem real to me,” said the 29 -year -old player, by AP. “I came here when I was a child to see this tournament, but winning it and holding this trophy was not even in my dreams.”
Neither of the two players was able to keep his service in the first three games, but Paolini won the fourth to take a 3-1 lead and were in charge for the rest of the set.
The Italian then broke his opponent twice at the start of the second set to take a 3-0 lead, before Gauff separated.
But Paolini remained composed, restoring his three -game advance in the next match and crossing the rest of the set, finally winning victory with a great service in the middle of its second championship point and raising their arms to celebrate.
Paolini, finalist at the Open of France and Wimbledon last year, is the first Italian winner at the Italian Open since Raffaella Reggi won the female tournament in simple in 1985. She is only the fourth Italian winner in the general classification since the start of the tournament in 1930.
The victory means that it will go fourth in the world ranking before the French Open, which begins on Sunday May 25.
“Maybe I could have served better and put more bullets in court,” said Gauff, who had 55 uns forked errors and seven double faults. “I could certainly and I can. But she played to win today and she deserved to win.”
“With the double faults, this is something I know that I have to improve,” she added.
Then, Sunday, Paolini and Sara Errani, the reigning Olympic champions, came twice 4-0 to win the final of the female double 6-4, 7-5 against Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens.
Jannik Sinner, n ° 1 world male, hopes to make a very first Italian scanning of the titles of Rome in simple when he faces Carlos Alcaraz later Sunday. The last Italian to win the tournament was Adriano Panatta in 1976.
