Defending champion Maria Sharapova had another tough battle on Friday as she booked her place in the semi-finals of Stuttgart’s 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 clay-court 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.
Having needed three hours to beat Lucie Safarova in Thursday’s second-round, the statuesque Russian has now played more than five hours of tennis inside 24 hours after needing two hours, 16 minutes to beat Ivanovic.
After Sharapova took the first set, clay-court specialist Ivanovic rallied in the second with a good variety of shots.
Sharapova broke Ivanovic twice in the third, in a sequence of three breaks, before her aggressive game finally wore down the 25-year-old Serb, who reached the world number one ranking just after winning the 2008 French Open title.
Sharapova, ranked second in the world, will now play third-seed Angelique Kerber in Saturday’s semi-final after the German beat Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova 6-3 7-6 earlier.
China’s Li Na, the second seed in Stuttgart, is in action later on Friday when she takes on Petra Kvitova in her quarter-final.
Germany’s Sabine Lisicki is up against qualifier Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the USA for a place in the last four.