World number 4 Jasmine Paolini cruised past 2021 Olympic singles champion Belinda Bencic 6-1 6-1 in the women’s singles match at the United Cup on Rosewall Arena in Sydney to earn her first win of the 2025 season.
Italy can finish at the top of Group D with a win over France on Tuesday. Switzerland dropped to 1-1 after their win over France in the first tie. Italy will face France, who lost 2-1 against Switzerland.
Bencic beat France’s Chloe Paquet in her first tour-level match since her maternity leave on Friday and entered her match against Paolini with a 2-0 lead in their previous head-to-head matches.
Paolini won the first eight points in her first match against Bencic since 2022 and broke the Swiss player in each of her three service games. The 2024 Roland Garros and Wimbledon finalist broke Bencic twice to race out to a 4-0 lead. Bencic pulled one of the two breaks back in the fifth game. Paolini broke for the third time in the sixth game to win the first set 6-1. Bencic served at just 39% in the first set.
Paolini went up a 3-0 lead with a double break in the first and third games. Bencic pulled back on serve in the fourth game for 1-3. Paolini broke in the fifth game to race out to a 4-1 lead. The Italian player broke for the seventh time on the second match point to seal the win after 58 minutes.
“I think I played a really good match. It’s great to have Belinda back on tour. She is an amazing player. She beat me many times. Maybe even in juniors, so maybe more than twice. Today everything worked really well. I was serving well I think that was the key”, said Paolini.
Paolini gave Italy an unassailable 2-0 lead after Flavio Cobolli beat Dominic Stricker 6-3 7-6 (7-2) in the opening men’s singles match earlier today to take a 2-0 lead in their head-to-head series. Cobolli had already claimed a win over Stricker in the 2023 Next Gen ATP Finals in Jeddah.
Cobolli climbed to a career-high number 30 in the ATP Ranking last September.
Cobolli fended off all five break points he faced. The Italian player broke twice in the first and ninth games to win the first set 6-3.
Both players went on serve in the second set en route to the tie-break. Cobolli earned an early mini-break to open up a 2-0 lead. Stricker pulled back on serve on the fifth point for 2-3. Cobolli won the final four points to seal the tie-break 7-2.
“I think I played a really good match. It’s always a great thing with the flag of Italy on the heart, with some friends on the bench, with my dad on the bench. It’s always fun and I did great things for us”, said Cobolli.
This year’s US Open mixed doubles champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori completed the sweep by beating Bencic and Stricker 6-3 6-4 in 1 hour and 20 minutes. Errani and Vavassori raced out to a 3-0 lead with a double break. Bencic and Stricker pulled one break back in the fourth game. Vavassori served it out on the first set point with an ace in the ninth game.
The Italian team broke in the first game of the second set on the deciding point. They went up a double break at 15 to open up a 3-0 lead in the second set. Bencic and Stricker saved five match points and pulled one break back in the ninth game to close the gap to 4-5, but Errani sealed the win on the sixth match point with a backhand volley.
