Help us keep bringing the truth to light, even when Russia turns the lights out.

Shop and support
Culture

Ukraine's Svitolina wins third Italian Open title

• 1 min read
Ukraine's Svitolina wins third Italian Open title
Ukraine's Elina Svitolina returns against China's Wang Xinyu during their women's singles fourth round tennis match on the eighth day of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 8, 2024. (Photo by Andrej Isakovic/AFP via Getty Images)

Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina won the WTA 1000 Internazionali BNL d’Italia tournament in Rome, securing one of the biggest titles of her recent career.

In the final, Svitolina, ranked No. 10 in the world, defeated Cori Gauff, who is ranked No. 4, in a nearly three-hour match.

She took the win in three sets, 6–4, 6–7, 6–2, after a tightly contested second set that went to a tiebreak.

The victory marks Svitolina’s 20th career WTA title and highlights her strong form against one of the top-ranked players on the tour.

She previously won the tournament in 2017 and 2018, and reached the quarterfinals last year.

Svitolina, a celebrated Ukrainian athlete originally from Odesa, serves as an ambassador for Bring Kids Back UA, President Volodymyr Zelensky's initiative to return Ukrainian children forcibly deported by Russia.

Avatar
Sonya Bandouil

North American news editor

Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC. Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.

Read more
News Feed
Video

In May 2026, Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps launched a secret counteroffensive now known as Operation Vivaldi, aiming to strengthen Ukraine’s defensive positions in the Lyman and Sviatohirsk sectors and disrupt Russia’s plans to encircle Ukraine’s key strongholds – the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

"Russia is building the military-industrial capacity to continue waging wars even after the war in Ukraine ends. These are not the actions of a country preparing for lasting peace," Oleksandr Danylyuk, chairman of the Center for Defense Reforms and former chief adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, told the Kyiv Independent.

 (Updated:  )

For almost two years, student-led demonstrations in Serbia rallied against Vucic's right-wing incumbent Serbian Progressive Party. Protesting against alleged corruption in the government, the movement was triggered when a train station canopy in the city of Novi Sad collapsed in 2024, killing 16 people.

Show More