The Italian Open semi finals were played and won - one was decisive, the others took two hours or longer to finalise.
Defending champion Elina Svitolina (4) proved too much for Anett Kontaveit and will prepare for successive Rome titles after winning her match 6-4 6-3.
She will again play Simona Halep (1) in the final. Halep was in trouble when Maria Sharapova took the first set to Russia 6-4. Serve was broken an incredible nine times out of the ten games.
However, the Ukraine willpower is renowned, and it came to bear in a second set where Halep held her serve throughout and broke Sharapova three times for a 6-1 domination.
In the decider, Halep held serve in the fourth game, the only hold in the first seven games.
Sharapova held and levelled at 4-4 but she was tiring, not surprising considering her time on court during the tournament- three long three setters from her four matches coming into the final, compared to Halep with a bye and a walkover. Sharapova had spent almost four and half times as much energy on court as Halep to reach the final.
Halep drew on this and wrapped up the last two games winning a rematch of the 2017 final with Svitolina.
Sharapova will improve her ranking from 40 to 29 and signs are good for further improvement as she has no points to defend this year.
Sascha Zverev (2) is the mens defending champion, and he had the task of defeating Marin Cilic (4) in their semi final if he was to have a chance of repeating 2017.
The opening set saw no breaks of serve, although Cilic had to save four chances that were given the German young gun.
In the tie break Cilic made the front running to lead 4-0, but he faltered, and despite having five set points, it was Zverev who converted his fourth break point to win the advantage 7-6(13). The tie breaker lasted over twenty minutes.
Cilic broke straight away in set two, but Zverev was quick to reply in kind and repeated the dose later to claim a finals berth 7-6(13) 7-5.
He will have a tougher battle in the ultimate match, as it will be the clay king as the opposition.
Rafa Nadal (1) also had to win the first set of his semi against Novak Djokovic (11). He did, but much quicker than Zverev over Cilic.
Nadal had broken Djokovic for 4-2 and consolidated at 5-2, but Djokovic was playing well and he kept Nadal in check over the next few games, especially using a clever backhand tactic.
Once in the tie break, Nadal’s forehand won the day, and he captured a high quality set 7-6(4).
Set two was Nadal at his best, controlling things from the baseline, and although Djokovic challenged manfully, he couldn’t win the important points.
Rafa broke early and held that until Novak served at 3-5 to stay in the tournament. He couldn’t, and Nadal converted his first match point to advance to the final 7-6(4) 6-3.
If Nadal wins the tournament he will regain the number one ranking from Federer, which seems fair since the Swiss ace isn’t actually playing and shouldn’t have taken to the top in principle, although statistically it had been correct.
While losing in the semi final, Djokovic played his best tennis since his comeback, both in the quarter final, and especially in his battle with Nadal.
Career high rankings have been attained thanks to efforts in Rome:
Jelena Ostapenko - 4 previously 5 (if Halep wins the final)
Anett Kontaveit - 25 previously 26
Petra Martic - 34 previously 35
Maria Sakkari - 39 previously 42
Diego Schwartzman - 12 previously 15
Kyle Edmund - 17 previously 19
Denis Shapovalov - 26 previously 29
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