Rome May 20 (IANS) Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina on Sunday overpowered Romania s Simona Halep in the Italian Open final successfully defending the title and beating the top seed 6-0 6-4.
Svitolina world No. 4 needed 67 minutes to defeat the current world No. 1 to earn the 12th career title and her third this season following her successes in Brisbane and Dubai.
This was the second year in a row that Svitolina bested Halep in Rome after winning the 2017 final 4-6 7-5 6-1.
This was also the third time Svitolina successfully defended a title following her back-to-back wins in the Baku Cup (2012 2013) and the Dubai Tennis Championships (2017 2018).

--IANS kk/bg