Defending champion Karolina Pliskova returned to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia final with a solid 6-2 6-4 victory over fellow Czech Marketa Vondrousova.
After comfortably winning the first set, Pliskova was tested in the second, as she dropped serve right in the beginning and later saw a 4-2 lead go away as Vondrousova leveled to 4-4. The second-seeded Pliskova then saved a break point to lead 5-4 and broke Vondrousova’s serve to seal the win in one hour and 22 minutes.
Looking at the stats, Pliskova was better in all departments except for the winners-to-unforced-errors differential, but she made up for that with much better break point conversion.
The last obstacle in Pliskova’s title defense will be Simona Halep, who advanced earlier on Sunday by beating Garbine Muguruza in three sets.
