Two-Time Rome Champion Svitolina Eliminated in First Round

Elina Svitolina has been historically a good performer at the Italian Open in Rome, but not this year, as her run was ended by Lesia Tsurenko.

Two Ukrainians, both of whom often speak about their country, met at the Italian Open, and Tsurenko proved to be the better player out of the two. It was a strange match in many ways because it was a massive upset.

Svitolina has been historically very good at Foro Italico. She won the WTA 1000 event two times, even though that was a lot of years ago in 2017 and 2018, back-to-back.

Since then, she’s performed well in the Italian capital as well, even though nowhere near the level she had back then. Tsurenko, meanwhile, is a very tricky player to beat. She might never make it to the Top 10 or win Grand Slams, but she has the game for it, even though she struggles to deliver it consistently.

She’s essentially the perfect player to pull off such an upset, and this time around, it worked. It was a fairly close match. Svitolina started better with an early break, leading 2-0. Tsurenko then responded, winning four games in a row to take a 4-2 lead.

Although she then lost the break to make it 4-4, Tsurenko still won the opening set 6-4. It was a very unstable performance from Svitolina, who had a good level at times but just couldn’t hold it. She went up and down too much, and Tsurenko came out on top because of it.

The second set featured more stable play by both players, but it was Tsurenko who was once again better. She broke first, and while she did lose that break, she broke again, and this time around, she was able to hold it.

Svitolina just didn’t play well enough on her serve, losing too many points and allowing nine break chances. That was too much, and Tsurenko took care of it, winning the match 6-4, 6-3.