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 champion Maria Sharapova had another tough battle on Friday as she booked her place in the semi-finals of the Stuttgart WTA tournament with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 quarter-final win against former world number one Ana Ivanovic. The 26-year-old Sharapova, who is using the claycourt tournament to help prepare for the defence of her French Open title at the end of May, was again taken to three sets as Ivanovic rallied in the second set.

Results from the fourth day of the WTA Stuttgart tournament on Thursday (x denotes seeding): 2nd round Maria Sharapova (RUS x1) bt Lucie Safarova (CZE) 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-3 Ana Ivanovic (SRB) bt Nadia Petrova (RUS x8) 6-4, 6-3 Angelique Kerber (GER x3) bt Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) 6-0, 6-4 Yaroslava Shvedova (KAZ) bt Carla Suárez (ESP) 7-5, 6-4 Petra Kvitova (CZE x5) bt Julia Görges (GER) 2-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 Na Li (CHN x2) bt Mirjana Lucic (CRO) 6-1, 6-2 afp

Former world number one Ana Ivanovic needed just 72 minutes to see off Germany's Andrea Petkovic on Tuesday in the first round of Stuttgart's WTA tournament. The 25-year-old Serbian, who won the 2008 French Open title on her way to being world number one that June, enjoyed a 6-3, 6-2 first-round win against wild-card Petkovic who is on her way back after a series of injuries.