By Chris Davies
May 21 2003

Conchita Martinez showed her class in her third round match against 7th seed Daniela Hantuchova and next plays World Number One Serena Williams in the quarter-finals at the Italian Open Masters, Rome Martinez the last champion to defend her title at this tournament in 1996 showed how good her clay court game is even though her ranking has slipped. The unseeded Spaniard raced to a 4-1 lead in the first set easily claimed the first set 6-3. The Slovak did show signs of her game coming together in the second set breaking Martinez serve to lead 2-0 but it wasn't good enough as the clay court specialist cruised through the remaining games to win 6-3.

If Martinez can stay with Williams who is her next opponent then who knows what can happen in this clash.

Serena Williams won against Nathalie Dechy comfortably but is still yet to hit top form in this tournament was sluggish in the first set dropping serve but managed to advance 6-3, 6-0.

Former World Number One Jennifer Capriati battled through her match against Nadia Petrova who beat Monica Seles in the last round.

The Russian's gigantic serve helped her along and also her big powerful groundstrokes caught Capriati by surprise every now and then. After Jennifer won the first set it was all over when she broke at 2-2 to lead 3-2 with the help of Petrova's errors starting to rise with almost every point.

Jennifer Capriati now plays France's Amelie Mauresmo after she overcame Anna Pistolesi for the third consecutive time and by far the easiest win for Mauresmo 6-0, 6-3.

Kim Clijsters is having a much easier time this week than last week demolishing Zimbabwe's Cara Black 6-0, 6-3 to set up a quarter-final against Anastasia Myskina. Clijsters will be guaranteed number 2 seed if she wins that match for the French Open.


Third Round Results

Conchita Martinez (Spa) bt (7) Daniela Hantuchova (Svk)
6-3, 6-3

(13) Ai Sugiyama (Jpn) bt (17) Patty Schnyder (Swi)
6-2, 6-1

(8) Anastasia Myskina (Rus) bt Svetlana Kuznetsova (Rus)
6-4, 7-4

(5) Jennifer Capriati (USA) bt Nadia Petrova (Rus)
7-5, 6-3

Tina Pisnik (Slo) bt Emilie Loit (Fra)
2-6, 6-4 6-1

(2) Kim Clijsters (Bel) bt Cara Black (Zim)
6-0, 6-3

(4) Amelie Mauresmo (FRA) bt (11) Anna Pistolesi (ISR)
6-0, 6-3

(1) Serena Williams (USA) bt Nathalie Dechy (FRA)
6-3, 6-0