Top seed Maria Sharapova beat France’s Mary Pierce in an absorbing third-round match to reach the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters on Thursday.
The reigning Wimbledon champion won a thrilling contest 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 in exactly two hours to reach the last eight and keep alive her dream of becoming world number one for the very first time.
By winning the Rome title, Sharapova would replace American Lindsay Davenport at the top of the rankings.
The 18-year-old Russian refused to get carried away with her progress and insisted her feet are staying firmly on the ground.
”It would be an amazing feeling to be number one, but I’ll just be taking one match at a time,” she said. ”I’m going to come up against tough opponents and this is only my second tournament on clay this year.
”I know expectations of me are high, but I will try to keep cool and keep enjoying myself.”
Sharapova applauded the 30-year-old Pierce for pushing her all the way.
”She’s always a difficult opponent. She returns really well, she has a huge serve and her ground strokes are very big, so you have to be ready on every ball.”
Former French Open champion Pierce, a winner in Rome herself in 1997, battled back from 5-2 down in the first set to force the tie-break, but a catalogue of unforced errors allowed Sharapova to strike the first blow.
Sharapova broke for a 4-3 lead in the second set, the fifth consecutive break of serve, and held on to her service to seal a hard-fought clash.
A winner in Tokyo and Doha this year, Sharapova will next play compatriot Elena Bovina after the ninth-seed edged Argentine doubles specialist Paola Suarez 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/5).
Defending champion Amelie Mauresmo reached the quarterfinals, despite lacking the fluency and power that took her to the title last year.
The 25-year-old French second seed made 27 unforced errors and double-faulted seven times in her scrappy 6-4, 6-3 victory over Italy’s Silvia Farina Elia.
Mauresmo next faces 33-year-old Conchita Martinez after the four-time Rome champion was handed a walkover against Russian seventh seed Nadia Petrova.
Petrova, ranked ninth in the world, failed to recover from the right thigh strain she suffered in her second-round win over Mara Santangelo on Wednesday.
Sixth seed Vera Zvonareva edged a three-set tussle against Catalina Castano of Colombia to reach the last eight for the second time in successive years.
The 20-year-old Russian won 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 and will play Francesca Schiavone, the only Italian left in the competition.
Schiavone, who knocked out third seed and seven-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams in round two, defeated Japanese 15th seed Ai Sugiyama 6-3, 7-5.
Swiss eighth seed Patty Schnyder beat Serbian Ana Ivanovic 6-3, 6-2 to set up a quarterfinal meeting with Evgenia Linetskaya. The unseeded Russian overcame Argentinian Gisela Dulko 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
The clay-court Rome Masters is a warm-up event for the French Open, which starts on May 23. — Sapa-AFP