Sharon Fichman (Toronto, ON) was crowned champion in doubles at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome on Sunday alongside Giuliana Olmos of Mexico. The pair defeated Kristina Mladenovic of France and Czech Marketa Vondrousova 4-6, 7-5, 10-5 in the final.
“There are no words to explain what it means to me,” said Fichman after the game. “I’m so grateful, and I’m so proud of myself and my partner and my fiancé. He’s been with us all week. I’m so proud of us as a team. Then the crowd support, it’s so nice to be able to play in front of fans. We haven’t been able to get it very often. They were just awesome. They gave us that lift we needed and pumped us up when we didn’t really feel like getting pumped up. I’m so happy to be able to win this tournament and to do it in front of such a wonderful crowd.”
Fichman and Olmos reached the final after a grueling tournament which included eliminating the top seeds (Elise Mertens/Su-Wei Hsieh) and the fourth seeds (Ena Shibahara/Shuko Aoyama). After dropping the opening set in the championship match, the Canadian and her partner took their game up a notch to quickly take a 4-1 lead in the second set. Mladenovic and Vondrousova had not said their last word, however, as they staged a major comeback and even served for the match at 5-4. However, Fichman and Olmos continued to show resilience and managed to stop the comeback to take the set 7-5. The duo played with renewed confidence for the remainder of the match, dominating the super tiebreak to seal the triumph.
The win is Fichman’s first WTA 1000 title and the fourth WTA doubles crown of her career. Her last tournament victory came in 2020 when she won the Monterrey doubles title with Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine. For her part, Olmos picks up the third WTA doubles crown of her career.