The 2025 Italian Open delivered two days of dramatic, rain-interrupted tennis on Saturday, capped by Elina Svitolina capturing her third WTA 1000 Rome title and Jannik Sinner extending his historic Masters 1000 winning streak to book a spot in the men’s championship match.
Ukraine’s Svitolina, the tournament’s seventh seed, outlasted American star Coco Gauff in a topsy-turvy three-set clash, finishing the match 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2 to lift the trophy. Remarkably, the champion’s last WTA 1000 title also came at the Foro Italico, eight years prior, making Saturday’s win a full-circle moment for the veteran.
Gauff, a two-time Grand Slam champion and pre-tournament favorite who fell just short of the title last year, entered the match aiming to become the first American woman to claim the Rome crown since Serena Williams in 2016. But the serving errors that have long plagued her game reemerged at the worst possible time on the tournament’s centre court. Gauff was broken three times en route to dropping the opening set, hampered by four double faults – two of which came in the pivotal game that gave Svitolina a permanent lead. At 4-5 down on set point, Gauff produced an unusual misstep, hitting a second serve into the wrong half of the court before gifting Svitolina the set with another double fault.
A visibly frustrated Gauff struck her own head with her racket before storming off court, though she returned shortly after for a heated discussion with coach Jean-Christophe Faurel. The pep talk appeared to work: Gauff sorted out her serve to force a tense second set filled with dynamic, crowd-pleasing rallies, and clawed back to level the match with a tiebreak win. But Svitolina’s steady, consistent play – a hallmark of her run through the entire tournament – proved too much. Two more breaks of Gauff’s serve in the deciding set sealed the champion’s 20th career tournament title, and dashed Gauff’s hopes of claiming her first trophy of the season just one week ahead of her French Open title defense.
In the men’s semi-final action, world No. 1 Sinner closed out a rain-paused clash against Daniil Medvedev to secure a spot in Sunday’s final. The match was halted overnight on Friday due to Rome’s wet, volatile weather, after the Italian fell ill mid-clash – even vomiting on court and requiring medical treatment for a tight right thigh, as Medvedev pushed him to his toughest test of the entire tournament.
When play resumed on Saturday, delayed an extra hour by new rainfall and a preceding men’s doubles semi-final, Sinner looked refreshed: he joked and played casual football with his coaching staff during warm-ups under newly emerged spring sun, and carried his momentum through to the finish. Sinner held onto his 4-2 third-set lead from the paused match, closing out a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 win after two and a half hours of high-stakes play that stretched across two days. The win marked Sinner’s 33rd consecutive victory in Masters 1000 competition, and puts him in position to claim a record-extending sixth straight Masters 1000 title on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters after the match, Sinner acknowledged his physical struggles from the day prior. “I think it’s normal that not every day we feel 100 percent,” he said. “I tried to play with the best possible energy I have. Yesterday brought me to a point where I was up today. Today I’m very happy that I finished it.”
Sinner will face Norway’s Casper Ruud in the final, after Ruud delivered a dominant 6-1, 6-1 semi-final win over Luciano Darderi – a match also cut short and restarted due to heavy rain. The 2025 Rome final gives Ruud a chance at revenge: last year at the Foro Italico, Sinner delivered one of the most lopsided wins in tournament history, beating Ruud 6-0, 6-1 in the quarter-finals. Ruud has yet to win a single set across his four career matches against Sinner, but will climb back into the world’s top 20 in the ATP rankings on Monday regardless of Sunday’s result.