Swiatek Starts Well At Italian Open After Double-Bagel Win Over Pavlyuchenkova
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek sent a daunting message to any would-be rivals as she began her Italian Open title defence with a crushing 6-0 6-0 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. The Pole, who lost the Madrid Open final to Aryna Sabalenka last weekend, is looking to win the Rome crown for a third year in a row. She will face Lesia Tsurenko or 28th seed Bernarda Pera in the last 32.
Iga Swiatek’s bid for a third consecutive Italian Open crown got off to the perfect start as the top seed earned a crushing double-bagel victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Swiatek was in an uncompromising mood under the Roman sunshine as she stormed to a 6-0 6-0 win in 67 minutes to set up a clash with Lesia Tsurenko or 28th seed Bernarda Pera.
The world No. 1 has now achieved 31 bagel sets since the start of the 2022 season, while her win over Pavlyuchenkova made her just the second player in the Open Era after Chris Evert to register multiple double-bagel wins in Rome, this being her second in the Italian capital and third overall.
“When I’m playing these kind of matches, I’m just trying to be focused,” Swiatek said.
“It’s actually pretty hard to be focused when you are really thinking [about the score]. So I’m trying to remember what got me this nice score, what I should do to continue playing that well. I just want to be consistent in it.
“In my opinion, the score doesn’t really matter and it doesn’t have any influence on my feeling on the court. I’m just trying to play my best tennis no matter what the score is.”
Swiatek headed to the Eternal City on the back of a disappointing and is still on the hunt for her first WTA 1000 title of the season.
She clinched victories at the Doha and Stuttgart WTA 500 events and is now looking to defend her Rome crown ahead of the French Open later in May.
The 21-year-old is guaranteed to avoid Sabalenka this time in her bid for glory in Italy after the second seed on Thursday, declaring herself “exhausted” afterwards.
But if Swiatek was also feeling any tiredness after her efforts in Spain, it didn’t show.
The Pole raced out of the blocks, grabbing the match by the throat by breaking Pavlyuchenkova twice in a row to quickly establish a 5-0 lead.
The Russian then faced a desperate bid to avoid a bagel on serve, but couldn’t hold off the world No. 1 as she broke yet again to take the first set 6-0 in just 34 minutes.
Pavlyuchenkova managed to save eight of the 11 break points she faced in the opening set, but it was a one-sided affair as Swiatek produced her 30th bagel set since the start of the 2022 season.
The Russian world No. 42 has good clay-court pedigree; she was the 2021 French Open runner-up and won the women’s doubles in Rome last year alongside Veronika Kudermetova.
But the 31-year-old couldn’t lay a glove on her fired-up opponent as she was broken again twice early in the second set to fall 4-0 behind as Swiatek won her 10th game in a row.
She made that 11 with a hold of serve to move one game away from a remarkable double bagel as the clock ticked past the one-hour mark.
Pavlyuchenkova was soon under pressure again and faced match point at 30-40, which Swiatek took to complete a dominant win in just 67 minutes.
