Serena pulls out with knee injury

Schiavone benefits at Madrid

The American former number one said she did not want to harm her chances at the French Open starting later this month and added the knee problem was linked to a thigh injury that has been bothering her in recent weeks.

In the men's draw, ninth seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga battled past his former idol Marat Safin 6-4, 7-5 to set up a second-round clash with Croatian wild card Ivan Ljubicic.

Tsonga, 24, said he remembered watching the 29-year-old Safin, a former world number one, playing at the French Open and the Paris Masters, where the Russian won three times and finished runner-up once.

"For me he was like an idol before, so it was really special to play against him and to win against him," Tsonga told a news conference.

"I liked his game but before everything his personality," he added. "Today I was happy with my game. I played great tennis, some good serves and volleys, and I was really aggressive so I'm happy today."

Twelfth seed David Ferrer of Spain beat Guillermo Canas of Argentina 6-2, 6-2 and 11th seed Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland trounced Italian qualifier Marco Crugnola 6-2, 6-0.  In the women's draw, Elena Dementieva defeated Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain 6-3, 6-2.

Sania-Chuang advance

Sania Mirza and her Taipei partner Chia-Jung Chuang moved to the doubles pre-quarterfinals of the euro 3,500,000 Madrid Masters after defeating wildcards Ma Emilia Salerni and Silvia Soler Espinosa 6-3, 6-4 in their opening match.

They will next take second seeds Anabel Median Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual.
Sania could not make it to the singles main draw as she lost the first round of the qualifying event to France’s Aravane Rezai 3-6, 3-6.

Somdev in pre-quarters

Somdev Devvarman knocked out third seed and world number 104 Leonardo Mayer of Argentina 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the pre-quarterfinals of the $50,000 Zagreb ATP Challenger event.

Meanwhile, in the Turkey ATP event, Prakash Amritraj and his American partner Rajeev Ram advanced to the doubles quarterfinals after beating local wild card pair of Sami Beceren and Banis Erguden 7-6 (3), 6-2 in the first round.