Wed May 14 14:24:55 2008

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Serena, Venus move on; Ivanovic falls in Rome

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Rome, Italy (Sports Network) - American stars Serena Williams and Venus Williams eased into the third round, while top-seeded Serbian Ana Ivanovic was a second-round upset victim Wednesday at the $1.34 million Italian Open, a clay-court French Open tune-up.

The Australian and French Open runner-up Ivanovic was sent packing by Bulgarian qualifier Tsvetana Pironkova 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 on Day 3 at Foro Italico.

Meanwhile, a fifth-seeded Serena flattened Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko 6-2, 6-0 and a seventh-seeded Venus floored Aussie Samantha Stosur 6-4, 6-1. Venus is seeing her first action in a month after taking some time off due to medical reasons.

Serena captured this event back in 2002, while Venus was the winner in 1999 and the runner-up in 1998.

In other second-round action involving tournament favorites, third-seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova crushed Belarusian Olga Govortsova 6-2, 6-0, fourth-seeded and defending Rome titlist Jelena Jankovic handled Italian crowd favorite Flavia Pennetta 6-1, 6-4, and No. 6 Russian Anna Chakvetadze got past Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko 3-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-0. The Serbian Jankovic beat the U.S. Open runner-up Kuznetsova in last year's Rome finale.

In other top-10 play, No. 8 Wimbledon runner-up Marion Bartoli foiled fellow Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano 6-4, 7-5, No. 9 Swiss Patty Schnyder shut down Spanish lucky-loser Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-1, 6-0 and No. 10 Russian Vera Zvonareva held off Czech qualifier Iveta Benesova 7-5, 4-6, 7-5. Schnyder also played her first-round match here on Wednesday, and fought back to beat Ukrainian qualifier Mariya Koryttseva 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Wild card and Italian favorite Sara Errani erased 11th-seeded Hungarian Agnes Szavay 6-0, 6-3, while No. 12 Pole Agnieszka Radwanska overcame another Italian wild card, Roberta Vinci, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, and French qualifier Alize Cornet disappointed the home crowd by ousting 17th-seeded Italian veteran Francesca Schiavone 6-3, 6-2.

Additional second-round wins came for Belarusian wild card Victoria Azarenka, Russian Maria Kirilenko and Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki.

In addition to the aforementioned Schnyder, five other women also saw double duty and won their first-round bouts on Day 3, as Russian lucky-loser Ekaterina Makarova, Kirilenko, Kateryna Bondarenko, Cornet and Pennetta also posted opening-round wins before delving into their second-rounders. Makarova upended 13th-seeded Czech Nicole Vaidisova 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 and Kirilenko knocked out 18th-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Three second-round and six first-round matches were either postponed or suspended because of rain here on Tuesday.

This year's Rome titlist will collect $196,900.