Elina Svitolina stuns World No. 1 Simona Halep to defend crown

Ukraine's Elina Svitolina with the Rome Masters trophy. Pic/AFP

Elina Svitolina underlined her status as a top favourite for the French Open by sweeping Simona Halep aside 6-0, 6-4 to successfully defend her Rome Masters crown yesterday.

Simona Halep

In a repeat of last year's final, Ukrainian Svitolina, seeded fourth, was up against Halep a day after the Romanian top seed had ousted Russian Maria Sharapova. But Halep's hopes of overturning last year's defeat to Svitolina, 23, quickly evaporated in a completely one-sided encounter. Svitolina has now successfully defended three tournament titles in her career and has won her last eight finals.

Catch up on all the latest sports news and updates here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever