Rome '26: Swiatek’s flawless win vs Osaka, How is Gauff STILL alive in Rome?!

Iga Swiatek denied us an edgy fourth round showdown in Rome with an utterly dominant victory vs Naomi Osaka. Does this mean Iga is on the road back to her former highs? Meanwhile, Coco Gauff had a much tougher match Monday after saving a match point vs Iva Jovic in a titantic tussle. 

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Transcript

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Coco Golf pulled off a Houdini act on Monday after earning a Titanic 5-7-7-5-6-2 comeback victory over Ivo Yovic in Rome. Of course, I'm gonna break this match down and whether Coco's so-so form right now will be good enough to move past Mira Andreva next in the quarterfinals. Also, the big marquee matchup between Iga Sfiantek and Naomi Osaka turned out to be a total bust. With Shjantek sweeping aside her fellow former world number one with a masterful performance. Does this signal a true return to form for the three-time champion? Ciao Mikiyama Christian Bass Knight at Benvenuti a la Christian's Court, where I cover tennis from all angles. If you have not yet already, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post my next Rome update video. So, first starting out with this golf Jovich match, man, I mean I had Coco winning this match, but when it actually got into it, it really had all the signs of a Coco loss. Despite losing the first six points of the match, Coco looked great at the start of it. She broke first and got up to a 3-1-30 love lead. And then that's when the wheel started to come off for golf. We saw some poor misses from both the forehand and backhand wings, and the footwork was definitely off, and she was over-rotating way too much on the forehand. And Tennis Channel showed an ISO shot of Coco's ground strokes and her forehand. And you can see here she's hitting so many different types of forehands in this one rally alone. I don't know how she's able to pull this off, but she's off balance. That left leg just cannot stay planted on a lot of these shots. And I think to course correct for her errant forehand, Coco opted to be a little bit more passive from that wing. And Eva took advantage of that. She really took it to golf and targeted that forehand a lot from both the serve placement and just her regular ground strokes, and it paid off. And Eva was also able to get some really uncharacteristic backhand errors from golf. Golf looked better at the start of the second set. She broke first and had a two-love lead. And Eva looked like she was having a dipping form overall around this time as well. But Golf just gave up the ghost after she got the two love lead. And her forehand lost its range really badly in those three those next three games after she got out to it to the two love lead. And I think around this time, Eva she found her form again, and she won the next five of six games after Love 2. Now I think Goff started to control her form and started to play a little bit better around 4-3 onwards, but Yovich, she played a great game at 4-3 to break, and she attacked Coco, served well, and produced some great shots. I 100% thought that Eva was taking this match in straight sets, especially when she went up 30 love in this 5-3 game when she served for the match. And while we can definitely say that Eva had a pretty bad collapse, you have to give a lot of credit to Coco for just not giving up. And I noticed once she won that point at 30 love off of a strong return, she said, come on to herself. And I think that sent a message that Coco was not going away, despite the score line being not in her favor at all. And Eva, she double faulted the very next point after that. Jovic still got out to a match point, being up 40-30 in the game. And here is where the tables turned because Coco directed most of her shots to the Jovich forehand in this in this rally and was able to get the air. Coco needed three break points before finally getting out of this game to break 4-4-5. And I thought Eva still might break back the following game to win, but obviously that that did not happen. It's also important to note that Jovic fell at one point during this 5-3 game and sought treatment on her finger. Also, the tennis channel graphics showed that Jovic's depth and shot placement was pretty poor in this game when she tried to serve for the match. I think nerves definitely played a role towards the rest of the second set as Jovic committed a lot, a lot of just really sloppy errors and did not force Coco to play too much, to be honest. Once Coco broke in the first game of the third set, I thought that she would run away with the match. And eventually she did, but Jovic showed signs of life when she broke right back. But unfortunately for Eva, she just could not hold her serve at all in the third set. Her first serve percentage gradually dipped as the match went on. It started strong in the first set as she served at 73% first serves in. The second set dipped down to 53%, and then the final set, she served just 35% of her first serves in, which is dismal. I also think the 3-2 game where Coco came through a pretty tight service game really secured her the match as she didn't drop another game after that. Definitely not her best win for Coco, but it's a win nonetheless. And I really think Jovic probably should have won this match. And I think, like I said, nerves played a role. Again, she's still pretty young, 18 years old, really just her second full year on the tour for real, for real. And this was a huge match for her because if she were to have converted that match point, it would have been her first ever top five win. Plus, that would have secured her her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal. So I understand why she wobbled a little bit. And I do think maybe Jovic has a tendency to choke, just thinking back to Indian Wells, where she squandered three match points against Camilla Osorio, and she was up 5-3 in the second set when she had those match points. I think 5-3, 5-4, either one, and she ended up losing that match. So I don't know. I think eventually she'll she'll move past that though. She should still be very proud of herself. I think considering where she started her right clay season with two straight sets losses in the Billie Jean King Cup qualifying rounds against Belgium. This is a great result, pushing the the or the reigning Roland Garrett's champion to the brink and nearly beating her. So this definitely shows to the to the locker room that Jovich is dangerous on all surfaces. Props to Coco again. She might look down and out and hit herself or what else, but she won't give up. She will always try to find a way. And right now, this tournament, Rome is reminiscent of her run to the Dubai semifinals earlier in the year, as she's not playing her best tennis, but she's just winning ugly. As in her last round against Solana Sierra, she recovered from a double break deficit in a third set. Although I don't think this level will be enough to win her the title, she's got to play better. Up next for her is Mira Andreva, and Coco does lead the head-to-head with Andreva four to nothing, but Mira is arguably playing a bit better right now, and she's having a great clay season, winning Lentz, making the semifinals with Stuttgart, and then the finals of Madrid, and she just beat Merton 6-3-6-3. The last meeting between these two was actually in this very stage at Rome in the quarterfinals last year, where golf took it 6-4-7-6. They also played in Madrid last year, where Coco won 7-5-6-1, although Mira had two set points at 5-4. So definitely, while those were two straight sets matches, one or two points, if one or two points went the way of Mira, this could have been a different result, maybe. Andreva also has the serve and maybe the variety edge. I say maybe because thinking back to their previous matches, I think Coco did well using different heights and spins against Mira, especially heights to Mira's backhand, like heavy spin to Mira's backhand. So I'll be intrigued to see whether Mira can actually be the one to make golf more uncomfortable. Also, I think Coco is a better athlete and is much more, or let me be nice, more mentally tough compared to Mira right now, and that can be the biggest edge. This is gonna be a tough one for me to call. It's gonna be played in the evening time, so slower conditions, which maybe could favor Coco a little bit more in this one. Like I said, I think it'll take a rise in level from golf if she wants to win, and I think she can do it, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't will she is the question. You also can't forget, too, that Mira has her moments of lapse and concentration and form, and I think we can expect that still here in that match. I don't think that she'll play a pretty clean, perfect match all the way throughout, but you'll never know. On Andreva, she has done pretty well in the three setters during the clay season, but Coco is still a different breed, and I feel like you would have to favor golf a little bit more if things get really tight. And I picked Coco in my tournament preview. I'm gonna be sticking with her here just because I think the conditions will favor her. I am expecting her to play a little bit better, plus, I'm just expecting a scrappy match, and in those types of situations, golf normally comes out on top. I will be actually doing a live stream for this one. I'm very excited. Like I said, I think it's gonna be a slug fest, and the match will be 1 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow, Tuesday, so stay tuned for that. Now I said in my last video that I was planning on doing a live stream for this Igos Fionantech Naomi Osaka match, but I had prior commitments around like 3:30 or 3 o'clock, and I just couldn't change. Honestly, though, I'm not mad that I didn't live stream because we did not get that edgy affair that many of us thought we'd get. Iga laid down the hammer, dominating Osaka 6'2, 6'1 to reach her fifth quarterfinal of the season. Originally, I picked Iga when making my little match preview as I felt that the nighttime conditions would better favor her, as I thought it would make the balls play slower, and I anticipated Naomi possibly spraying a little bit more, and that's really exactly what happened. The match was promising at the start. We saw a few early trades of breaks. Both women had to work hard to hold serves initially. Naomi, though, more than Iga, and Osaka was broken six times total in this match, and she faced a break point in every last service game whenever she stepped up to the line. Her serve definitely was nowhere near as effective as it was against Deanna Schneider. I think the nighttime conditions maybe played a role, but Naomi just did not hit her spots really well at all. She laid a lot of her second serves in the middle of the court too, and Iga just took advantage. A lot of returns were in Iga's strike zone, and Sfiance really put on a returning masterclass. It was the best I've seen her return in a very long time. She was in the zone and got a lot of these returns right back on Naomi quickly with interest. Naomi, she won just 48% of her first serve points in this match and just 32% of her second serve points. Iga, meanwhile, served solid, winning 68% of her first serve points and 67% of second serve points, which is a terrible stat if you're in Naomi, allowing Shyongtek to win that many seconds or points. And she just made life way too easy for the pole with very poor returning. She missed way too many makeable returns. And the ground game was also just pretty inconsistent from the Japanese woman. Far too many unforced errors from both sides. And she finished with 24 unforced errors to just nine winners. I think with the conditions in combination with Fiontek's heavy spin, it just made uh a disaster for Naomi. And she struggled with the balls out of her strike zone. And I remember the conditions the last time they played, which was on clay at Rolling Garros in 2024, they're definitely different, as that was an indoor match. And plus, overall, the clay at Rolling Garros I think plays quicker than here in Rome. Not only did I hit with more top spin in this match, but she hit with more pace than Naomi, which was very unexpected. And I felt like perhaps it was harder for Osaka to hit through Iga in these conditions, and maybe she just wanted to outrally Xiontek, but Iga was too consistent tonight. And whenever Iga has time, she's still like so so tough to beat. She can do whatever she wants with the ball. And I think Naomi just gave her way too much time. And even when Naomi hit with good depth, it still was not enough to trouble Iga. She just came up with some unreal shots. A phenomenal match from her. I really think this is the best match she's played so far this year. It's better than her win against Carolina Mahove at Indian Wells, too. She was just firing on all cylinders and has been playing really well within herself, hasn't been forcing the issue too much, and has also been more willing to absorb pace and hang in rallies a little bit longer. But I don't think it's pushing because she can hang in there, but also whenever she sees an opportunity to go for the shot, she goes for it, and she was executing almost every time. And I thought Naomi had a chance low-key because Tomas was in her box, and of course, Vit Karowski was Fiontek's coach for about three years. But I it's really not much that Tomas could have done. And I wonder if Iga maybe was a little bit extra determined seeing Tomas in another player's box. But this was overall just a statement performance and statement win for Iga. Is she back? It's looking like she is, but I won't be totally and entirely moved unless she wins her next match. Because yes, Iga played great, but Naomi just was not great in this match, gotta be real. She did not apply nearly enough pressure, especially scoreboard-wise. And recently with Iga, whenever she's more under pressure and duress, that those shots start to spray. So also, Naomi has not reached a quarterfinal herself this season at all and is not a top 10 player. And Iga has lost her last six matches against top 10 opponents, and she has also not yet made a semifinal this year. She'll look to end both those negative streaks in the quarterfinals against Jessica Pagula. Pagula returned to the quarterfinals in Rome for the first time since 2021 after earning a 7-6-6-2 win over Anastasia Potopova, who's been on fire all clay season. Pagula now improves to 6-0 against Podopova. Now, Shiance at least a head-to-head with Pagula's 6-5, and Jessica though has won their last two meetings, and it's only their second ever clay meeting. I think Eagle would be much, not much, but will be favored more in these conditions with it not only just being clay, but Rome is it plays slower, and she's not going to be rushed as much, I think. Pagula likes to hit flat, and that can obviously cause problems for Sfiantek, but I'm just not anticipating Sfiante having as many issues with those type of flat ground strokes of JPEGs. I think that really, I think Iga should win this match, and I will be picking her to reach the semifinals. Aside from Golf Jovic and Pagula Potopova, all the other women's matches were really duds. Sorana Kursia backed up her win over Rena Sabolenka with a 6-2-6-4 win over Linda Noskova, and she now improves to 3-1 against the Czech this year in 1000 tournaments. Up next for Kursella is Yelena Ostapenko, who scored her first win against Anna Kalinskaya in four attempts, doing so with an emphatic 6-1-6-2 win. Kalinskaya is Russian, but this time she refused to shake hands with her opponent, paying Ostapenko total dust. I did hear that there was a bit of tension between the pair from their last meeting in Doha earlier this year, as apparently Ostapanko had a few harsh words about Kalinskaya's team, so I don't know. They shook hands in Dubai, but not here. So maybe also something else went on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Yelena leads the head-to-head with Kirstea 4-3, although Serrano has won their last two meetings, including one from Brisbane this year. Elena Svitilina and Elena Robakina will face off for the seventh time after they both scored wins over Czech players. Svitalina sent off 20-year-old lucky loser Nikola Bartankova 6-2-6-3, while Robakina routed Carolina Pushkova 6-love, 6-2. Robakina leased the head-to-head with Svitalina 4-3, and she won their last meeting in the Indian Wells semifinals not too long ago. Now looking at the men's side, the top half played today and it was filled with complete chaos. Yannick Center, unsurprisingly though, handled business when he dominated Alexi Popperin 6-2-6 love. This is his 30th straight ATP 1000 win, and that puts him one shy of tying Novak's record of 31 consecutive wins at the 1000 level. The world number one won't have to face a top 50 player at least until the quarterfinals. His next opponent, Andrea Pellegrino, who's also Italian, isn't even ranked inside the top 150. The 29-year-old who came through qualifying hadn't won a main draw masters match before the tournament. But today he scored a 7-6-6-1 win over World number 22, Francis Tiafo. Pellegrino's more of a classic clay court specialist. He moves around the court very well. And it's nice that he's having this moment despite this being so deep in his career. I know a lot of people talk about him on Twitter because of his thirst traps, but I'm glad that he's making news for his actual tennis results this time. But this match against Yannick will definitely be the most memorable match of his career, win or lose. I mean, I'm 99% sure he's gonna lose this one, but but still, just a great moment being able to play your countryman, the best Italian player in history at your home 1000 tournament. That's gonna be something you tell your grandkids. Andre Rublev will probably be Yannick's biggest threat in the top half, to be honest. He defeated Alejandro Davidovich Falkina in straight sets. Now Andre faces Nicolos Basilasvili, who defeated back-to-back Americans, Ben Shelton, followed by Brandon Nakashima in the third round. Another Russian, Danil Medvedev, is still alive. He took down Pablo Yamos Ruiz and will now take on Tiago Agustin Tirante, who stunned Flavio Caboli and the home crowd 6-3-6-4. I'm not shocked that Tirante did this. He's been balling for a minute, especially on Clay, where he scored three top 10 wins on the surface this year already. I don't think this will be an easy match at all for Medvedev. Mariano Novone did not join his fellow Argentine in the round of 16. Novone fell to Hamad Majedovic 4'6, 6'3, 6'4, and an epic match that saw Majedovic throw up on court the final game before successfully serving it out and securing his first masters round of 16. Hamad next faces off against another young player, Martin Lendeluthé. The 20-year-old lucky loser from Spain beat Mattia Bellucci 6'4-6-3. So a great opportunity for both Mejedovic and Leneluthe. Leneluth is seeking his second 1000 quarterfinal after he made the Miami quarterfinal two months ago. Looking at Tuesday's order of play, Lorenzo Musetti and Casparude open things on Campo Centrale, followed by Corstea Ostapenko, then Senator Pellegrino, and then Golf Andreva starts off the night session, followed by Medvedev Tirante. On the BMP Parabas Arena, you have Rafa Hodar take on Leonard Tien, definitely gonna be seeded for that one. And then after that is Luciano Dardare against Alexander Zverev, then Rublev Basilashvili. On the Super Tennis Arena, you have Hachinoff and Prismic as the only singles match on play there. That is all I have for this Rome update video. Let me know your thoughts on that insane golf Jovich match. And if you think that Coco can raise her form enough to at least be Andrevo, or if you think that Mira will get her maiden win against Coco. Also let me know your thoughts of Shiontek's utter just demolition against Naomi Osaka. And if you think that she is indeed back and ready to win another slam, or if you think that Pagula will once again stop her in the quarterfinal stage. Again, make sure you all subscribe and click the notification bell so you all know are notified whenever I post my next update video. Thank you all so much for watching and for your support. And I will see you all next time here on the Creation Discord.