World number one Serena Williams got her Madrid Open title defence off to a battling start Sunday, beating Kazakh qualifier Yulia Putintseva 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 but China's Li Na fell at the first hurdle. Putintseva had come through two rounds of qualifying and seemed to handle the warm conditions better early on in an extremely tight first set. Both women broke each other once and Putintseva managed to save another three break points to force the set into a tie-break.

Defending French Open champion Maria Sharapova claimed the Stuttgart WTA title on Sunday, beating China's Li Na 6-4, 6-3 in just over 90 minutes to get her clay-court season off to a winning start. Having been taken to three-sets in all of her previous three matches here en route to the final, Sharapova saved her best tennis until last to defeat the Chinese in straight sets. She broke Li twice in the first, but the Chinese managed to reply with a break of her own before Sharapova used the first of her three set points to take the first set.

French Open champion Maria Sharapova admitted she had dug deep to reach the quarter-finals of Stuttgart's WTA tournament after her three-hour marathon victory over claycourt specialist Lucie Safarova on Thursday. Sharapova, who won last year's Stuttgart title en route to her Roland Garros victory, needed three hours, nine minutes to squeeze past her Czech opponent for a 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-3 second-round victory.

Australian Open finalist Li Na said Monday she is pleased her on-court success has triggered a tennis boom in her native China as she prepares to launch her clay-court season at Stuttgart's WTA tournament. "Now so many kids want to be professionals, they see the games broadcast on television. When I was little, it was quite different," admitted the 31-year-old, who is the second seed in Stuttgart behind Maria Sharapova.