Ana Ivanovic was ahead in both sets of her third-round encounter with Maria Sharapova at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, but she displayed her brilliant ability to let a match slip away and you know how well Sharapova can smell prey.

Sharapova made a terrible start to the match, making a total of four double faults in her first two service games to assist Ivanovic in taking a 3-0 lead which comprised of two breaks. Ivanovic had a game point in the following game, but Sharapova started winning. Still, Ivanovic earned a set point at 5-3 and five set points at 5-4, aaaand Sharapova saved them all to level at 5-5! In the tiebreak it was again Ivanovic who first established a lead, but again Sharapova clawed back from 4-4 in the tiebreak to win the set with a shot right on the line.

Even though Ivanovic started the second set by dropping serve, she again built a lead, 3-1. However, the history repeated, the lead was not enough, as Sharapova took charge and won all the remaining games. Final score: 7-6(4) 6-3.

In the quarterfinals, the second-seeded Sharapova will face wildcard Venus Williams, who overcame Samantha Stosur 6-4 6-3. Other quarterfinal pairs are: Dominika Cibulkova vs. Li Na, Serena Williams vs. Flavia Pennetta, and Angelique Kerber vs. Petra Kvitova. (photo: Ralf Reinecke)

Top two seeds at the Mutua Madrid Open Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova both advanced to the third round of the tournament where they will face Ana Ivanovic and Lucie Safarova respectively.

The second-seeded Sharapova was the first to go through, beating Klara Zakopalova 6-4 6-3. Sharapova opened the match by breaking Zakopalova to love and then working her way to winning the set from a 4-1 lead. In the second set Sharapova built a 5-2 lead, but serving for the match she lost her serve. She won the match, however, breaking Zakopalova to love. In the third round Sharapova will play Lucie Safarova, who defeated Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3 6-4.

Top seed Azarenka overcame Andrea Hlavackova 6-3 7-6(2) and will play Ana Ivanovic in the third round. Ivanovic advanced with a 7-5 6-1 victory over Nadia Petrova, serving seven aces and scoring 77% on first serve. (via Sharapova's official website, photo: Ralf Reinecke)

The greatest claycourt event in tennis is soon to start and sports fashion designers are set to show their vision of how tennis fashion should look in order to perfectly fit the spring, the red clay and the big occasion such as Roland Garros. We already showed you what we expect the Nike players to wear - Maria Sharapova in dark, olive  tones, Serena Williams in three shades of green, while Victoria Azarenka will be in colors similar to the clay. Let's see now how Adidas is envisaging the spring look.

Adidas by Stella McCartney is refreshingly abandoning red and moving on to lemon for Caroline Wozniacki. Actually, red migth stay, but in the accessories – wristband and visor. Read more »

Tennis Channel featured a video of Ana Ivanovic sharing memories of her childhood in native Serbia and I wanted to share it with you as a nice addition to my childhood pics series. Ivanovic says how her happiest memories included riding a bicycle by the river in Belgrade with her brother.

The slideshow in the video may be familiar to some of you, as the photos have been available on Ivanovic's official website. Below you can see Women's Tennis Blog's collection of Ivanovic's early photos and videos.

• Childhood photos of Ana Ivanovic
• Ana Ivanovic's website now full of young photos
• Flashback – Remember this Ana Ivanovic?
• Little Ana Ivanovic modeling, who said the FHM cover was a surprise?

Additional info: The former world No.1 Ivanovic is again the highest-ranked Serbian WTA player, rising from No.16 to No.14 today, while Jelena Jankovic fell fron No.15 to No.17.

Resurgent former world No.1 Ana Ivanovic, the 2008 champion at Indian Wells, recorded her second straight victory in two sets at the tournament, following up her upset of Caroline Wozniacki by another Top 10 win, over Marion Bartoli in the quarterfinals. Let me remind you, Wozniacki and Bartoli are last year's Indian Wells finalists!

Only in her first two service games Ivanovic gave Bartoli break opportunities, actually Ivanovic opened the match by dropping serve. However, she broke back right away and in the third game of the match Bartoli's another opportunity to take Ivanovic's serve remained just that, an opportunity, as Ivanovic earned a 2-1 lead. From 3-3 Ivanovic took charge again, won the first set and started off the second with a 2-0 lead. Until the end of the match Ivanovic was stable on her serve and won in an hour and 17 minutes 6-3 6-4.

In the semifinals, winner of the match between Russians Maria Kirilenko and Maria Sharapova will await Ivanovic. The other semifinal is a first meeting between world No.1 Victoria Azarenka and soon-to-be Top 15 member Angelique Kerber. (source: B92, photo: © Neal Trousdale)