Photo credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty
Eleven months removed from her last final, Iga Swiatek arrived in Rome vowing to dial down her penchant for perfectionism.
Today, Swiatek amped up her aggression and rocked the red clay in her Rome return.
Defending champion Swiatek stormed through seven games in a row, shredding Italian wild card Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-1, 6-0 to score her seventh straight Rome victory.
Three-time Rome champion Swiatek improved her Internazionali BNL d'Italia record to 21-1 since 2021.
Today, Swiatek stamped successive love holds and broke the wild card in her first two service games storming out to a 5-0 lead.
The second-seeded Swiatek served out the opening set at 15.
Taking short preparation steps to set up for her crunching groundstrokes, Swiatek broke Cocciaretto in all three of her service games in the second set.
Swiatek converted her second match point to close a 52-minute thrashing.
Continuing her hunt for her first final of the season, Swiatek will face Iga Swiatek launched her Rome defense stomping Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-1, 6-0 and will face Danielle Collins in round three.
The 2024 Miami and Charleston champion swept Elena-Gabriela Ruse 6-3, 6-3.
Playing her first match since she fell to compatriot Jessica Pegula in the Charleston quarterfinls, Collins scored her first clay-court win since defeating 2017 Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko in Charleston.
Swiatek owns a 7-1 record vs. Collins, including a contentious clash in the Paris Olympics quarterfinals when the American retired due to an abdominal issue trailing in the third set.
Bad blood between the pair bubbled up at net as Collins appeared to admonish the Polish superstar while holding her hand in the post-match handshake.
It was later revealed that Collins believed Swiatek had resorted to gamesmanship and was insincere with regard to her past injury struggles. Collins clutched the five-time Grand Slam champion's hand while she spoke her piece.
"She didn't have to be insincere about my injury," Collins said. "There's a lot that happens on camera. And there are a lot of people with a ton of charisma … (who) are one way on camera and another way in the locker room.
"I don't need the fakeness." There was tension earlier in the third set as well, when Collins rifled a backhand pass into Swiatek’s body that sent the Pole to the clay. She was down for a moment, and had trouble breathing, but recovered after a moment. Collins also was annoyed with Swiatek delaying her as she prepared her serve by pausing and holding up her hand. At one point, a frustrated Collins stared down Swiatek and told her: "There's no one behind me. Play at the server's pace."
Swiatek said afterward was baffled by the interaction.
"I've never done anything unpleasant to her," she said in comments published by Polish journalist Dominik Senkowski. "I just wanted to congratulate her on her successful career, because we know that this is her last year.
"Honestly, I don't know what she meant. We didn't have any interactions that could have caused something like this."
Asked today, what level of fire she aims to bring to the Rome rematch, Collins did not hesitate in her reply.
“Hopefully I can bring [the intensity] up to a 10,” Collins told Tennis Channel’s Prakash Amritraj. “Iga’s one of the best players in the world and always brings the hard-hitting shots, so I gotta be ready."
Former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka extended the best clay-court run of her career. Osaka scored a 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 win over Swiss lucky loser Viktorija Golubic. It was Osaka's seventh straight-clay-court win.