Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, WTA’s 4th, has lost the final in Rome against Ukrainian Elina Svitolina 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 on Sunday, in one hour and 7 minutes.
Halep concludes thus a series of ten consecutive wins, including the Madrid tournament trophy.
Svitolina has a record of 31 wins and 6 defeats this season.
The only previous match between the two players was in Sofia in 2013 when Halep won 6-1, 6-1.
Elina Svitolina returns to the Top 10 and ascends to the top of the Porsche Race to Singapore leaderboard after winning her eighth career title at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, defeating former World No.2 Simona Halep, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
The No.8 seed is in the midst of a career-best season, winning back-to-back titles at the Taiwan Open and Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, and kicking off the clay court season with another win at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Cup, wtatennis.com informs.
Svitolina won her first match in six meetings against No.2 seed Karolina Pliskova en route to the final, and faced her toughest test yet in Halep, who was aiming for the elusive Madrid-Rome double last earned in 2013 by 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams.
The Romanian eased out to a 5-2 lead to start the match only to roll her ankle as she closed in on the opening set, eventually clinching it two games later as the Ukrainian youngster began working her way into the match.
Taking a 3-1 and later a 5-3 lead in the second, Svitolina held off several fightbacks from Halep to break and level the match in the 12th game, starting a string of seven straight games to put herself on the brink of victory.
Halep held down 0-5 and gave Svitolina all she could handle in a riveting final game, but the new PRTS No.1 held on to take the win after two hours and seven minutes on court.
In all, Svitolina struck 25 winners to 37 unforced errors and converted seven of 11 break point chances, while Halep hit 30 winners to 47 errors.
Romanian media underlines that after the ankle injury, Halep’s game was much poorer and that the match could have been very different in the absence of such an event.