After Coco Gauff's 3-hour marathon to reach final, Serena Williams' ex-coach Rennae Stubbs bluntly calls out Italian Open scheduling
Rennae Stubbs, former coach of Serena Williams, called out the scheduling at the ongoing Italian Open. Stubbs raised the issue as the semifinal match between Coco Gauff and Zheng Qinwen went past midnight at the Foro Italico on Thursday (May 16).
The evening session on Thursday at the Italian Open had two scheduled singles matches on Campo Centrale. Home favorite Jannik Sinner took the court first to face off against sixth-seeded Casper Ruud in a quarterfinal clash, which began at 19:00 local time, which was to be followed by a high-stakes semifinal clash between Coco Gauff and Zheng Qinwen.
However, Sinner was at his brutal best, dismantling Ruud 6-0, 6-1 in just 64 minutes, to reach his maiden semifinal in Rome. This quick match meant that the Gauff-Zheng clash could begin at 20:30 local time. However, this clash was anything but quick, as the match went on for 3 hours and 32 minutes, with the American player winning the match in a third-set tiebreaker well past midnight.
Rennae Stubbs called out the scheduling, stating that a semifinal was too important a match to be scheduled that late in the night. She claimed that the match would have finished even later, had the earlier men's match not finished just over the hour mark.
"No semifinal should be at midnight! Imagine if Sinner had been a long match!" said Stubbs (via X)
Coco Gauff is all set to face sixth-seeded Jasmine Paolini in the final, which will take place on May 17.
Coco Gauff reaches her first Italian Open final on her third semifinal attempt
This was the third semifinal appearance for Coco Gauff at the Italian Open, having reached the last-four in 2021 and 2024. However, on both occasions, she lost against Iga Swiatek, who went on to win the competition.
However, this time Gauff was determined to win her semifinal, and that showed through in her three-hour marathon against Zheng. The match swung to and fro as both players found it difficult to hold serve, as the match saw 19 service breaks in total.
After multiple breaks in the deciding set, Zheng got the opportunity to serve for the match at 5-3. However, Gauff broke her back in the next game and took the match to a tiebreaker, winning the match. Despite having 15 double faults in the match, the American player showed composure and mental resilience to overcome a challenging opponent.