Italian Open: Iga Swiatek thrashes Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to reach third round

Rome [Italy], May 12 : World No.1 Iga Swiatek started her title defence at the Italian Open with a 6-0, 6-0 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the second round on Friday.

Swiatek will face either Bernarda Pera or Lesia Tsurenko in the third round. A two-time defending champion in Rome, Swiatek extended her win streak in the Eternal City to 12 consecutive matches.

Swiatek won in the first game against Pavlyuchenkova, despite the windy circumstances at the Foro Italico. Swiatek used her kick-serve effectively to keep Pavlyuchenkova at bay during her service games. Pavlyuchenkova, a Roland Garros finalist in 2021, played a strategically sound match but struggled to land her finishing shots consistently. Her only break point came at 4-0 in the opening set. Pavlyuchenkova did well to create room for a forehand down the line, but she missed. Swiatek went on to win the game.

Pavlyuchenkova battled back from 5-0 down to save six set opportunities from 0-40 on her serve, but the World No.1's tenacious return game finally broke through to seal her tour-leading eighth 6-0 set of the season.

Swiatek's ruthless march continued in the second set, as she ran the table to close out the win after 67 minutes.

"When I'm playing these kind of matches, I'm just trying to be focused. 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," WTA.com quoted Swiatek as saying.

"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," she added.