Elina Svitolina continued her impressive record in finals by thrashing world number one Simona Halep to successfully defend her Internazionali BNL d'Italia title.

Simona Halep was grateful for a gift from the sky as a rain delay helped the Romanian beat Victoria Azarenka to reach the US Open semi-finals.

Third seed Simona Halep crashed out in the French Open second round to Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, the same opponent she lost to at last year’s US Open.