Karolina Pliskova ended Johanna Konta’s hopes of landing a first clay court title with a 6-3, 6-4 victory in the Italian Open final. The Czech world No 7 did not drop a single service game as she secured the third clay title of her career and her first in Rome in one hour 25 minutes. British No 1 Konta claimed some big scalps on her way to the final, beating grand slam winners Sloane Stephens and Venus Williams as well as Madrid Open champion Kiki Bertens.

However, she struggled to trouble the Czech on serve as Pliskova recorded her sixth win in seven meetings with Konta. The result means Pliskova will be the second seed at the French Open later this month as she will move to No 2 in the world rankings.

Karolina Pliskova

• Karolína Plíšková is a Czech professional tennis player. She is a former world No. 1 and is currently ranked No. 7 in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).
• Plíšková has won thirteen singles and five doubles titles on the WTA tour, as well as 10 singles and six doubles titles on the ITF circuit in her career. On 31 October 2016, she peaked at world No. 11 in the doubles rankings.
• She reached her first Grand Slam final at the 2016 US Open, where she was runner-up to Angelique Kerber in three sets.
• Plíšková utilizes an extremely aggressive style, highlighted by her powerful, accurate serve as well as her forceful groundstrokes often in tandem with her net play, to extract errors from opponents or win points outright.