ROME (Reuters) - Serbian fourth seed Jelena Jankovic cruised past French teenage qualifier Alize Cornet 6-2 6-2 to retain her Italian Open title on Sunday.

"I'm happy to win my title for the second time. It's a great feeling," Jankovic told a news conference.

The match got off to a scrappy start and Jankovic found herself 5-1 up largely thanks to a lower error count.

The 18-year-old Cornet pulled a break back with the help of a netcord winner that almost smacked into Jankovic's head.

The Frenchwoman failed to hold her serve in the following game, however, and conceded the first set by hitting a forehand into the net.

Cornet, who beat Russian sixth seed Anna Chakvetadze and her third-seeded compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach the final, burst into tears at 4-1 down in the second set while the Serbian took a pause to have treatment on her right shoulder.

Cornet held her next service game and then earned three break points on Jankovic's serve but the champion saved them all and went on to break again to claim her sixth WTA Tour title and her first of 2008.

"To be honest, I was not playing good tennis. I played much better throughout the week," said Jankovic, who got a walkover to the final after Russian's Maria Sharapova pulled out of Saturday's semi with a calf strain.

"Today I had an opponent who is a young player with great potential and I just didn't know how she was going to play.

"I was the favourite and I had the pressure on me. I was defending my title so I'm glad I could cope with the pressure and win it for the second time."

Cornet blamed her poor performance on fatigue after going from the qualifying rounds to reach her first big tournament final.

"I'm just disappointed because it was a great week for me, but I couldn't play my best tennis today because I was tired from the six matches before," she said.

"I was not nervous before the match. I was very cool. I just tried to take this match like any other one. I just felt tired from the beginning of the match until the end, so after that it was difficult."

Earlier on Sunday, Taiwanese duo Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung beat the Czech-Slovak pairing of Iveta Benesova and Janette Husarova 7-6 6-3 to take the doubles title.

(Reporting by Paul Virgo, editing by Miles Evans)