ROME (AP) — That loss to Carlos Alcaraz seems to have motivated Novak Djokovic to step up his game.
Just in time, too.
A week after his defeat to the 19-year-old Alcaraz in Madrid, Djokovic won the Italian Open without dropping a set on Sunday for his first title of the year.
ROME (AP) — This is just what Novak Djokovic needed a week before the French Open.
The top-ranked Serb beat Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-3 at the Italian Open on Saturday to reach his biggest final of the year.
ROME (AP) — It was just the type of scrambling, wear-down-the-opponent mentality and shot-making that took Novak Djokovic to within one match of a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2021.
A spectacle that was missing for so much of this year when Djokovic didn’t play because he wasn’t vaccinated against the coronavirus.
ROME (AP) — With just 10 days to go before the French Open, Rafael Nadal is struggling with an injury again.
Nadal was hampered by a foot problem toward the end of a 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 third-round loss to Denis Shapovalov at the Italian Open on Thursday.
ROME (AP) — Once is enough when it comes to beating Rafael Nadal on a clay court.
Throughout his career, Nadal has never lost consecutive matches on his favorite surface and the Spaniard extended that perfect record on Wednesday by beating John Isner 6-3, 6-1 to reach the third round of the Italian Open.
ROME (AP) — At 37, John Isner is just happy to be back on tour in Europe with his wife and three kids.
No longer dreaming of a Grand Slam title, he’s trying to make the back end of his tennis career not seem “like such a job” and make it “fun.”
ROME (AP) — Denis Shapovalov overcame a point penalty and a hostile crowd to beat local hope Lorenzo Sonego 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-3 in the first round of the Italian Open on Monday.
Late in the second set, Shapovalov was given a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct after hopping over the net to show the chair umpire a mark on his opponent’s side of the red clay court — which is not permitted.
ROME (AP) — At 35 and after nearly two decades at or near the top of tennis, Rafael Nadal likens his body to “an old machine.”
A machine that was idle for more than a month recently when the 21-time Grand Slam champion was recovering from a rib stress fracture.
ROME (AP) — Fresh off his victory at the Madrid Open, Carlos Alcaraz withdrew from the Italian Open on Monday because of a right ankle injury.
Later, Naomi Osaka withdrew from the women's tournament with a left Achilles heel injury.
ROME (AP) — Gesticulating on the touchline in a black vest and a gray hooded sweatshirt, José Mourinho could have easily been mistaken for one of the 70,000 fans inside the Stadio Olimpico.
The outspoken Portuguese coach had told Roma supporters before the Europa Conference League semifinal that they shouldn’t come to the stadium just “to watch” the game but rather “to play” it.
ROME (AP) — For travelers heading to Europe, summer vacations just got a whole lot easier.
Italy and Greece relaxed some COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday before Europe's peak summer tourist season, in a sign that life was increasingly returning to normal.
ROME (AP) — Five-time champion Novak Djokovic can come to Rome and play at the Italian Open next month even if he is still not vaccinated against the coronavirus, the president of the Italian Tennis Federation said Wednesday.
DUBLIN (AP) — Six Nations champion France will begin its title defense at the 2023 tournament by playing Italy in Rome before facing Ireland the following weekend in Dublin.
The schedule was announced Wednesday and again features the Calcutta Cup in the first round with Scotland visiting Twickenham looking for a third straight victory over England.
ARMUCHEE, Ga. (AP) — Police say a northwest Georgia man killed his grandmother by stuffing her in a freezer while she was still alive.
Floyd County Police discovered the body of Doris Cumming, 82, late Thursday in the Armuchee home she shared with her grandson, 29-year-old Robert Keith Tincher III.
ROME (AP) — The war in Ukraine loomed over the traditional Good Friday Colosseum procession in Rome, after the Vatican’s choice of a Russian woman to share bearing the cross with a Ukrainian woman had angered Ukrainians.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a prison near Rome in a Holy Thursday ritual that symbolizes humility and service and highlights his papacy's attention to those on society's margins.
ROME (AP) — A close associate of Pope Francis on Wednesday defended the Vatican’s decision to have a Russian woman and a Ukrainian woman carry the cross together during a Good Friday procession that will be presided over by the pontiff.
MILAN (AP) — Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini will miss the next three ATP Masters 1000 tournaments as he recovers from surgery.
The 25-year-old Italian, who is ranked sixth, had surgery on his right hand last week.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Friday made a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the “deplorable” abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church's misguided missionary zeal.
ROME (AP) — A German humanitarian group appealed Wednesday for Malta to take in 32 migrants who were rescued off Libya this week by the Ukrainian captain of a container ship.
The request came as Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit Malta this weekend, encouraged the tiny European Union nation in the central Mediterranean Sea to welcome refugees in general.
ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Mario Draghi hosted leaders from three fellow Mediterranean countries Friday to push for an urgent, common European response to the energy crisis, which has been worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is threatening the economic recovery of small businesses and ordinary citizens.
ROME (AP) — An Italian appeals court on Thursday reduced the sentences of two young American men serving life terms over the multiple stabbing death of a Carabinieri police officer while they were on vacation in Rome in 2019.
Henrik Stenson accepted the job as Ryder Cup captain on Tuesday and pledged his allegiance to Europe and his attention to do everything possible to win back the gold trophy.
Stenson is the first Swede and the fifth player from continental Europe to be captain, chosen by a five-member panel that included three previous captains.
ROME (AP) — Ciro Immobile converted a penalty to become Lazio’s all-time leading scorer in Serie A as the Rome club beat relegation-threatened Venezia 1-0 on Monday.
The victory enabled Lazio to leapfrog Atalanta and Roma into fifth place, boosting its chances of direct qualification for the Europa League.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official said Russia asked China for military equipment to use in its invasion of Ukraine, a request that heightened tensions about the ongoing war ahead of a Monday meeting in Rome between top aides for the U.S.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis went to the Russian Embassy on Friday to personally “express his concern about the war” in Ukraine, in an extraordinary, hands-on papal gesture that has no recent precedent.
ROME (AP) — A pair of terracotta lovers caught in a tender embrace for 2,500 years are getting some Valentine’s Day TLC from Italian cultural officials.
One of the most famous lovers’ statues in the art world, the reclining spouses fashioned out of terracotta are being offered high-tech protection from the threat of earthquakes and lesser tremors from passing traffic outside, officials said Monday as they unveiled the 18-month project.
ROME (AP) — Make that 29 straight losses for Italy against England.
And, more embarrassingly for the beleaguered Azzurri, 34 straight defeats in the Six Nations.
With young flyhalf Marcus Smith showing his growing assurance, England coasted to a 33-0 win in Rome on Sunday with five tries also earning the visitors a bonus point.
There was a time, not so long ago, when England playing away to Italy in the Six Nations carried with it some jeopardy.
In three straight trips to Rome from 2008-12, England didn’t win by more than five points -- a run of results which some suggested was a sign of the growing strength of Italian rugby as the Azzurri got accustomed to life on the top table of the European game.
ROME (AP) — The World Food Program pledged continued cooperation Thursday with Rome prosecutors after they indicated they would seek indictments against two U.N. employees in connection with the 2021 killing of the Italian ambassador to Congo and two other people.
ROME (AP) — Lawyers and relatives of two young American men convicted of murdering a police officer in Rome said they are hoping for a better outcome from the defendants' appeals trial, which began Thursday in the Italian capital.
ROME (AP) — Several members of Italy's Carabinieri paramilitary police force called for the deaths or beatings of two American teenagers who were arrested in the hours after an officer's slaying, Italian media reported Wednesday.
LONDON (AP) — England must move on from its third straight opening-round loss in a Six Nations tournament with an injury-enforced adjustment to the back row and renewed doubts about the availability of a player lined up to captain the team.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has notched a new first in his nearly nine-year-old papacy — an appearance as a TV talk show guest.
Francis spoke about personal friendship as well as about issues like migration while interviewed by the host of a popular Italian talk show on Rai state television that airs on Sunday nights.
ROME (AP) — An Italian appeals court has definitively annulled the pre-trial arrest warrant for the prime suspect in the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial, signaling an end to extradition procedures in Britain for now, his legal team said Wednesday.
ROME (AP) — Monica Vitti, the versatile movie star of Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’Avventura” and other Italian alienation films of the 1960s, and later a leading comic actress, has died. She was 90.
ROME (AP) — Italy’s Catholic military chaplain has pushed back strongly against calls by a former Vatican ambassador for the armed forces to resist COVID-19 vaccine mandates, saying the ambassador’s “conspiracy theories” were a source of confusion and disinformation.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis encouraged tax collectors on Monday to keep working to redistribute wealth and fund social services that help the poor, saying their efforts are a “guarantee of equality” that helps the common good.
PARIS (AP) — The name Kim Jones dominated Paris fashion for a second week running as the indefatigable Briton who designs for Dior Men’s returned to the runway for his latest couture collection for Fendi.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly will be heading to Rome as the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
The U.S. Senate approved Donnelly for the position in a voice vote Thursday. President Joe Biden nominated Donnelly for the ambassadorship in October.
ROME (AP) — Italy is poised to elect a new president, meant to serve as the nation’s moral compass and foster unity by rising above the political fray.
ROME (AP) — A villa in Rome containing the only known ceiling painted by Caravaggio went on a court-ordered auction block Tuesday, thanks to an inheritance dispute pitting the heirs of one of Rome’s aristocratic families against their stepmother, a Texas-born princess.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has long lamented that he can't walk around town unnoticed like he used to before becoming pope. But he seems to have nevertheless kept his sense of humor after he was caught on camera making an unannounced visit to a Rome record shop this week.
ROME (AP) — With a European Union flag draping the coffin, Italy conducted a state funeral Friday for David Sassoli, the EU parliament's president who died earlier in the week.
Top EU officials including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel attended the service in Holy Mary of the Angels church in Rome's Republic Square.
ROME (AP) — To mask or not to mask is a question Italy settled early in the COVID-19 outbreak with a vigorous “yes." Now the onetime epicenter of the pandemic in Europe hopes even stricter mask rules will help it beat the latest infection surge.