{"id":586715,"date":"2026-05-16T04:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T04:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/586715\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T04:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T04:26:20","slug":"italian-open-2026-iga-swiatek-shows-signs-of-best-by-thrashing-jessica-pegula-in-rome-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/586715\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian Open 2026: Iga Swiatek shows signs of best by thrashing Jessica Pegula in Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swiatek became known as the ‘Queen of Clay’ as she gained a firm grip on Roland Garros, winning four titles between 2020 and 2024, as well as six WTA Tour events on the red dirt.<\/p>\n

However, she lost her invincibility on the surface last year – unable to win a clay-court tour event before losing in the Paris semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Swiatek tweaked her playing style under previous coach Wim Fissette, who tried to implement a more aggressive approach from the baseline.<\/p>\n

But she ended up losing confidence in what they were trying to achieve and quickly became ragged when matches started going against her.<\/p>\n

It has been a case of going back to basics with Roig, who she snapped up after his short stint with Britain’s Emma Raducanu ended.<\/a><\/p>\n

Swiatek played with the high intensity and relentlessness demanded by Roig from the start against Pegula – but, crucially, she always looked stable in her shot-making.<\/p>\n

Playing with more patience and a higher margin for error meant she was able to draw mistakes from the 2024 US Open finalist.<\/p>\n

Pegula was well below par on a surface she does not favour, but the manner in which Swiatek refused to let her level drop was a sure sign of her increasing assurance.<\/p>\n

Swamping Pegula’s second serve with deep returning was another notable feature.<\/p>\n

Tougher challenges will surely lie ahead in Rome. Swiatek will face Elina Svitolina in the semi-finals after Ukraine’s seventh seed recovered to beat Kazakhstani second seed Elena Rybakina 2-6 6-4 6-4, but the signs for her French Open challenge are looking more promising.<\/p>\n

In the men’s event, Norway’s Casper Ruud beat Russian Karen Khachanov 6-1 1-6 6-2 to reach the semi-finals, where the world number 25 will face Italy’s Luciano Darderi or Spain’s Rafael Jodar.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Italian world number 10 Lorenzo Musetti has become the latest leading men’s player to withdraw from the French Open through injury.<\/p>\n

Musetti reached the Roland Garros semi-finals last year but has been ruled out with a thigh problem picked up in Rome, joining Spain’s defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and Britain’s Jack Draper on the sidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swiatek became known as the ‘Queen of Clay’ as she gained a firm grip on Roland Garros, winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-586715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}