Richard Pagliaro | @tennis_now | Monday, May 12, 2025
Image source: Internazionali bnl d’Italia facebook
Peyton Stearns Lost lunch before and after the final draw in the critical pressure.
The gritty Stearns never lost her appetite for fighting.
Fighting cramps, bad stomach belly and hot former world number one Naomi OsakaSteines won 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (4) and reached her girlish quarterfinals.
Stearns snapped up Osaka’s eight-game clay court streak in his second straight third set win.
The 23-year-old Stearns surpassed the Australian Open champion Madison Keys In her second career top ten wins, 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (3) in the third round. Stearns’ next is a quarter-final clash with two-time Roman champions Elina Svitolina. Svetolina of the 16th seed defeated Danielle Collins 6-4, 6-2.
Stearns once again showed courage and fierce will today, vomiting the trash can on the side of the court before serving 5-6 in Osaka, forcing the third set to a tiebreaker in one of the hottest days to date.
“No harm,” Stearns said in the media in Rome. “I have to put the liquid back into my body.
“I’m a little tired now, but I have a lot of time to recover.”
Stearns fell 2-4 in the circuit breaker and dug out the depth of the forehand shot down.
Stearns broke Osaka’s backhand with a backhand, rushing for five consecutive points for five points, ending an amazing battle in two hours and 42 minutes later.
The last set alone spanned an hour and 22 minutes, and saw both women coming back from the breakup. Osaka rose 2-0 among the decision makers before Stearns led 4-2 in four straight games. Osaka won 8 out of 10 points in Game 7 and then put all the finals in the championship.
A dramatic decisive game sees Stearns fight Osaka and his body.
All this perseverance brings painful prices.
After coaxing the last backhand game, Sterns appeared to suffer a leg cramp, stepped on his net and swayed his hand, then immediately revisited the trash can and vomited again.
“I feel like here with Madrid, in the third set, I came out at the short end,” Stearns said. “Even in these tense deciding games, it’s finally happy on the other side.”
Talk about Texas hardships.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjte0bkcc1c
A year ago, Stearns ranked 82nd.
Today’s Victory Vault has given former gymnasts the 32nd place in the WTA field rankings for the new career highest ranking.
All three Americans in Texas see hard court as her favorite surface, but Sterns can dig deeper into the dirt, too. Her only tour champion was on the 2024 Rabat Red Clay, a year after she reached the Bogota final on the dirt.
Stearns’ Rome running was a month after her coach Tom Hill, Leave to coach Maria Sakkari. Hill’s exit left Stearns posted on social media for the new coach.
Now, she is playing the most dynamic dirt tennis of her career and showing a strong stomach for every stress test.
