The 2025 WTA Rome semifinals has thrown up two compelling finals with the first due to be contested between Coco Gauff and Zheng Qinwen. Both will no doubt be desperate to maintain their momentum ahead of the forthcoming French Open which starts in under a fortnight – but who will come out on top?<\/p>\n
Head-to-head:<\/strong> Gauff 2-0 Zheng<\/p>\n Gauff continues to solidify her reputation as one of the most consistent performers on the WTA Tour, and her form in Rome has been another example of that consistency. After an admittedly slow start against Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko which saw the American pushed hard in a three-set battle, Gauff has navigated the following rounds in more comfortable fashion. Her most impressive performance came in the quarterfinals, where she edged out rising teenager Mirra Andreeva 6-4 7-6, in a match packed with intensity and clutch moments.<\/p>\n Zheng, meanwhile, has looked increasingly confident with each match in the Eternal City. After sweeping aside Olga Danilovic, she maintained the same level against her next two opponents. But the performance that turned heads came in the quarterfinals, when Zheng dominated\u00a0 Aryna Sabalenka 6-4 6-3. The Chinese star has shown a well-rounded clay-court game, combining her trademark power with better movement and shot selection than earlier in the season.<\/p>\n This will be their third meeting on tour, with Gauff winning both previous encounters \u2014 including a tight three-setter at the WTA Finals last year and a straight-sets victory at this same event in 2024. That history gives Gauff a psychological edge, especially since she\u2019s shown the ability to raise her level at crucial stages against Zheng.\u00a0Zheng\u2019s key in this matchup will be taking time away from Gauff, especially by targeting the American\u2019s forehand with depth and pace. If she\u2019s able to consistently land first serves and dominate baseline exchanges early, she can put Gauff under pressure. However, Gauff\u2019s ability to scramble defensively and flip points around, especially on clay, remains one of her greatest strengths.<\/p>\n The conditions could also play a role. If it\u2019s a slower, heavier court, Gauff will benefit from having more time to neutralize Zheng\u2019s weapons. On a quicker surface, Zheng\u2019s flat groundstrokes may find more penetration. It\u2019s a fascinating battle between two future Grand Slam champions \u2014 one already established, the other rapidly rising. But Gauff\u2019s bigger-match experience and ability to manage the tougher moments give her the edge here. Still, this feels like a closely fought three-setter.<\/p>\n Prediction: Gauff in 3<\/em><\/p>\n Main photo credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2025 WTA Rome semifinals has thrown up two compelling finals with the first due to be contested between Coco Gauff and Zheng Qinwen. Both will no doubt be desperate to maintain their momentum ahead of the forthcoming French Open which starts in under a fortnight – but who will come out on top? WTA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4590,"featured_media":63836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[2747,15732,2872,5868,16942,16943,2373,2369,2873,5945],"class_list":["post-83578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predictions","tag-coco-gauff","tag-coco-gauff-predictions","tag-italian-open","tag-italian-open-predictions","tag-qinwen-zheng","tag-qinwen-zheng-predictions","tag-tennis-picks","tag-tennis-predictions","tag-wta-rome","tag-wta-rome-predictions"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83585,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83578\/revisions\/83585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}