Serena battles past Dushevina

A pumped-up Serena Williams drew on all her battling qualities to get past Vera Dushevina into the third round of the Madrid Open on Monday, coming back from a set down and saving a match point for a 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 success.

A pumped-up Serena Williams drew on all her battling qualities to get past Vera Dushevina into the third round of the Madrid Open on Monday, coming back from a set down and saving a match point for a 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 success.

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The American world number one, who won her 12th grand slam title at January's Australian Open before injury sidelined her for three months, looked to be on her way out of the clay event when the unseeded Russian held a match point at 6-5 in the second set.

In first round matches, eighth-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur edged past Argentine Gisela Dulko 7-6, 7-5 and 16th seed Nadia Petrova beat Russian compatriot Elena Vesnina 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Paes-Dlouhy in second round

Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the Madrid event after getting a first-round bye. Mahesh Bhupathi and his Belarusian partner Max Mairnyi are not competing in the euro 2,835,000 clay court event.