Italian Open: Hunter-Mertens defeat Gauff-Pegula to win doubles title
No.4 seeds Storm Hunter and Elise Mertens captured their first team title at the Italian Open by defeating top seeds Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula 6-4, 6-4 in the final, here.
Ukraine's Elina Svitolina continued her brilliant season with a clinical 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 upset win over injury-hit Simona Halep in the Italian Open final on Sunday.
Svitolina advanced to her maiden Rome final on Saturday when Spanish semi-final opponent Garbine Muguruza, the French Open champion, retired injured as she trailed 4-1 to the big- hitting Ukrainian.
But Svitolina, who ousted Czech second seed Karolina Pliskova in the quarter-finals, showed she was fully deserving of her spot, overcoming a tough first set against the sixth- seeded Romanian to level the match in a fiercely contested second set.
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Halep, who won the Madrid Open last week, needed treatment after going over on her right ankle in the second set as she hit a return from the baseline.
In the decider, the Romanian — who had won 26 of her past 30 meetings on clay — was visibly hurting and was helpless to prevent Svitolina from claiming her fourth title of the season after wins in Taipei, Dubai and Istanbul.
Svitolina now has a tour-leading 31 match wins in 2017 and takes over the lead from Pliskova in the Race to Singapore.
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