By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday, May 12, 2025
Photo credit: Internazionali BNL d’Italia Facebook
Peyton Stearns lost her lunch before—and after—a pressure-packed final tiebreaker.
A gritty Stearns never lost her appetite to fight.
Battling cramps, a queasy stomach and a red-hot former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka, Stearns prevailed with a pulsating 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4) triumph to reach her maiden Rome quarterfinal.
Stearns snapped Osaka’s eight-match clay-court win streak fighting through her second straight third-set tiebreaker triumph.
The 23-year-old Stearns out-dueled Australian Open champion Madison Keys 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(3) in the third round for her second career Top 10 win. Next up for Stearns is a quarterfinal clash vs. two-time Rome champion Elina Svitolina. The 16th-seeded Svitolina defeated Danielle Collins 6-4, 6-2.
Showing guts and a fierce will again today, Stearns vomited into the court-side trash can before Osaka served at 5-6 to force a third-set tiebreaker on one of the hottest days of the tournament so far.
“No injuries. Just really pushed myself to the limit out there, so I was throwing up,” Stearns told the media in Rome. “I got to put the fluids back in the body.
“Feeling a little tired now, but I’ve got a lot of time to recover.”
Trailing 2-4 in the breaker, Stearns dug down deep ripping a brilliant forehand strike down the line.
Breaking down the Osaka backhand, Stearns stormed through five points in a row to end a phenomenal fight after two hours, 42 minutes.
The final set alone spanned one hour, 22 minutes and saw both women come back from a break down. Osaka went up 2-0 in the decider before Stearns surged through four games in a row to take a 4-2 lead. Osaka won eight of 10 points breaking back in the seventh game before leveling the final set at 4-all.
A dramatic tiebreaker saw Stearns fighting both Osaka and her own body.
All that perseverance came with a painful price.
After coaxing one final netted backhand to end it, Stearns seemed to suffer leg cramps, hobbled to net for the hand shake then immediately revisited the trash can to vomit again.
“I feel like before here and Madrid, in third sets I was coming out on the short end of it,” Stearns said. “It’s nice to finally be on the flipside even in these tight tiebreakers.”
Talk about Texas tough.
A year ago, Stearns was ranked No. 82.
Today’s triumph vaults the former gymnast to a new career-high ranking of No. 32 in the WTA Live Rankings.
The three-time all American at Texas cites hard court as her favorite surface, but Stearns can dig deep on dirt too. Her lone Tour-level title came on the Rabat’s red clay in 2024, a year after she reached the Bogota final on dirt.
Stearns’ Rome run comes a month after her coach, Tom Hill, departed to return to coaching Maria Sakkari. Hill’s exit left Stearns posting for a new coach on social media.
Now, she’s playing some of the most dynamic dirt tennis of her career—and showing a strong stomach for every stress test.
AloJapan.com