Rome (AFP) - Iga Swiatek gave another indication she might be back to her brilliant best after destroying Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-2 at the Foro Italico on Wednesday and breezing into the Italian Open semi-finals.

A three-time champion in Rome, Swiatek took little more than an hour to take care of fifth seed Pegula on centre court, without facing a single break point.

It was a show of force on her preferred surface not seen since she last won the French Open two years ago, and gave Swiatek her first semi-final appearance of the season.

“I’ve been playing a bit differently, I would say. More similar to how I played couple years ago, more like a clay court player,” Swiatek told reporters.

“I guess all the things that we practised really clicked during last few matches.”

Swiatek set up a clash with Elina Svitolina, who fought back to beat Elena Rybakina 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, in the last four on Thursday night.

The Pole holds a 4-2 winning record over Svitolina, with victories in both of their meetings on clay.

If Swiatek gets past Svitolina again, a potential title clash looms with reigning Roland Garros champion Coco Gauff, who faces veteran Sorana Cirstea on Thursday.

Swiatek hasn’t won a clay-court tournament since claiming the most recent of her four Roland Garros titles, with personal problems a factor in her poor performances.

But since struggling through her second-round win against Caty McNally Swiatek has dropped just seven games in three matches.

Swiatek, a six-time Grand Slam champion, recently took on board Francisco Roig, the former coach of men’s clay-court icon Rafael Nadal, after a difficult opening few months of the season.

The 24-year-old got to the quarter-finals in Stuttgart in early April but was forced to retire from the Madrid Open in the third round due to a viral infection.

But the kind of form she showed on Wednesday suggests she could be favourite for a fourth Foro Italico title and back in the mix for the French Open crown.

Australian Open champion Rybakina looked poised to set up a meeting with Swiatek when she comfortably took the opening set against Svitolina.

But the Ukrainian responded superbly, scrapping into her sixth semi-final of the season.

- Ruud in last four -

In the men’s tournament Casper Ruud reached his first Masters 1000 semi-final since winning in Madrid last year after beating Karen Khachanov 6-1, 1-6, 6-2 in a match interrupted by a long rain delay.

Norwegian Ruud was one game down in the second set when a downpour fell on Rome, forcing the match to be paused for over two hours, and when play resumed Khachanov quickly levelled the match.

But Ruud claimed his tour-leading 139th win on clay since the start of the 2020 season and will face Italy’s Luciano Darderi who beat 7-6 (⁷⁄₅), 5-7, 6-0 in a three-hour match that finished past 2.00am local time (midnight GMT) on Thursday morning.

“A little bit of a, you know, down period in the second (set) when we came back after the rain,” said Ruud on court.

“But very proud of the first and the third sets… the quality that I played in the first and third sets is probably some of the best I felt on court recently.”

Jannik Sinner will face Andrey Rublev in Thursday’s first match on centre court, with the men’s world number one hot favourite to reach the last four and continue his bid for a sixth consecutive Masters 1000 title.