The 2026 Italian Open is now complete, with Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina victorious on the women’s side, and Italy’s Jannik Sinner victorious on the men’s side.
It was a memorable last couple of weeks for Svitolina, who was ranked seventh in the tournament. The four-time grand slam semifinalist beat four seeded players in winning the title. She steamrolled past American Hailey Baptiste 6-1, 6-2 in the second round. Remember, Baptiste upset Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 in the quarterfinals 0f Madrid. Svitolina then beat the second seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the quarterfinals, the fourth seed Iga Swiatek of Poland, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 in the semifinals, and then Coco Gauff of the United States, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 in the final.
In the final, a key statistic was double faults. Quite frankly, Gauff did a terrible job serving as she had seven double faults with a couple of serves that were out by an extremely wide margin. This was Svitolina’s 20th WTA title, and third Italian Open.
On the men’s side, you might be surprised that this was Sinner’s first ever Italian Open title. Sinner has now won all nine ATP Masters 1000 series events. The only other player to do that is Novak Djokovic. Sinner has now won six Masters titles in a row, and has only lost twice in 2026. His first loss came to Djokovic in the semifinals of the Australian Open (3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4) and his second loss came to Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic (7-6, 2-6, 6-3) in the quarterfinals of Qatar.
In Rome, Sinner beat Casper Ruud of Norway in the final, 6-4, 6-4. Sinner won 83% of the points on his first serve. In the process, Sinner became the first Italian man since 1976 to win the Italian Open. The last player to accomplish the feat was Adriano Panatta, who beat Guillermo Vilas of Argentina in the final, 2-6, 7-6, 6-2, 7-6.
Sinner is the heavy favourite heading into the French Open. Without Carlos Alcaraz in the field, it will be shocking if anyone beats the world number one.
