Paolini overpowers Bencic to seal victory for Italy at United Cup in Sydney

World No.4 Jasmine Paolini earned her first win of the new season by defeating Belinda Bencic 6-1, 6-1 to clinch victory for Italy over Switzerland at the United Cup in Sydney.

On the heels of Flavio Cobolli’s opening win over Dominic Stricker, Paolini’s dominant performance gave Italy an unassailable 2-0 lead and dropped the Swiss squad to 1-1 in Group D. Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori completed the 3-0 sweep with a 6-4, 6-4 victory against Bencic and Stricker.

Italy (1-0) can now finish atop Group D with a win over France (0-1) on Tuesday.

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Playing her first match since leading Italy to the Billie Jean King Cup title in November, Paolini showed no signs of rust or wear against Bencic. The Swiss Olympic champion posted an impressive win over Chloe Paquet in her first tour-level match since her return from maternity leave and entered Sunday night’s showdown with a 2-0 career record over Paolini.

But in their first meeting since 2022, Paolini showed the improved level that has boosted her to No.4 on the PIF WTA Rankings. Paolini won the first eight points of the match by controlling the power game from the baseline and did not look back. Bencic served at just 39 percent in the first set, allowing Paolini to take immediate control of the rallies and break Bencic in each of her three service games.

“I think I played a really good match,” Paolini said on court. “It’s great to have Belinda back on tour. She’s an amazing player, she beat me many times. Maybe even in juniors, so maybe more than twice.

“Today everything worked really well. I was serving well, I was returning very well. I think that was the key.”

The trend continued in the second set. Paolini rolled through her return games to keep Bencic winless on her service games, breaking her for a seventh time to close out the win in 58 minutes.

Just more than a year ago, Flavio Cobolli defeated Dominic Stricker in the 2023 Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF. On Sunday, the Italian was victorious against the Swiss again. This time, however, the win was for his country. Cobolli beat Stricker 6-3, 7-6(2) to give Italy a 1-0 lead against Switzerland.

“Of course I think I played a really good match,” Cobolli said. “It’s always a great thing to play with the flag of Italy on the heart, with some friends on the bench, with my dad on the bench.

“It’s always fun and I did great things today for us.”

It was a breakthrough 2024 for Cobolli, who climbed to a career-high No. 30 in the PIF ATP Rankings in September. The 22-year-old showed his strength and resolve inside Ken Rosewall Arena, saving all five break points he faced according to Infosys ATP Stats.

Stricker did well to fight back in the second set, much like he did Saturday against Ugo Humbert. But Cobolli’s consistent level proved too high, as the Italian took a 2-0 lead in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series.