All-Italian Final in Sicily

The Internazionali Femminili Di Palermo trophy will stay in Italy for a second straight year, as Flavia Pennetta of Brindisi and Sara Errani of Bologna will play for the International level clay court title on Sunday.

Errani is ranked thirty-two places below Pennetta, but is the defending champion at Palermo, having defeated Pennetta in the semifinals of the tournament last year. The two have only faced each once outside of Palermo, with Pennetta defeating the younger Errani when she was still ranked a lowly #216 in 2007 at Acapulco.

The odds of having an all-Italian final looked pretty good by the semifinal round, with three of the four semifinalists hailing from the country. Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany was the only foreigner in singles action on the last day in Palermo, losing to Errani in a roller-coaster three setter, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. Pennetta had decidedly less trouble dispatching fellow Italian veteran Tathiana Garbin, taking care of her country woman in fourteen games, 6-1, 6-1.

The real question for me going into this final is not how each will respond to the pressure of the occasion, or who the Sicilian crowd will be pulling for, but rather why Anabel Medina Garrigues wasn't in the draw. In AMG's last six times in Palermo, she's won four titles and made two semifinals. Medina Garrigues is scheduled to play Potoroz next week, so she's not injured--maybe she's just sick of winning in Sicily?