This content was published 7 years ago. It may refer to a past edition of the Internazionali d’Italia.

Dominika Cibulkova returns to the Foro Italico after a two-year absence looking to get some clay court matches under her belt following an injury-interrupted last couple of weeks.

“I haven’t played here for two years, and so I was really looking forward to be back here,” said the Slovakian, who didn’t play at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia last year as she chose to rest following her run to the Madrid Open final. “I take all these like preparation before Paris, and, you know, I just want to get used to clay because the clay season is so short, so you don’t have much time to get used to it.

“I had injury in my wrist, so I couldn’t really play Fed Cup and Stuttgart, so I start to play really full, like, one or two days before Madrid. So I was really happy about my first win against [Jelena] Jankovic in Madrid and not so happy about the second round [where she lost to Oceane Dodin].”

Cibulkova has notched up some good results on clay in the past, including reaching the final of the Madrid Open last year and the semifinals at Roland Garros in 2009, and will be hoping to taste success on the red dirt again this week.

The world No. 5 will face Roberta Vinci or Ekaterina Makarova in her opening round match. The latter has defeated her twice already this season, although Cibulkova leads the head to head 3-2, but the pair has never played on clay. She has won just three of her nine meetings against Vinci.