Defending champion Francesca Schiavone resisted the challenge of Jelena Jankovic and advanced to the quarterfinals of Roland Garros. On her tournament debut ten years ago she reached the quarterfinals, and together with her last year's title, this is her third appearance in the final eight of Roland Garros.

The fourth-round match between Schiavone and Jankovic was tense and could have gone either way, but the Italian's good serves and aggressiveness gave her that extra something needed to defeat the Serb who played Roland Garros semifinals in 2007, 2008 and 2010.

The world No.10 Jankovic has a lot to regret, at times she was leading in the third set, and both the players were pretty much equal, but the moment Jankovic allowed Schiavone to break her at 4-4, her fall was strongly suggested. Schiavone didn't let the opportunity slip away and won the match 6-3 2-6 6-4.

Schiavone's opponent in the quarterfinals will be Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who advanced with a 7-6(4) 2-6 6-2 victory over third seed Vera Zvonareva. With top seed Caroline Wozniacki and second seed Kim Clijsters already out, this is the first French Open since 1968 that none of the top three seeds are in the quarterfinals! World No.4 Victoria Azarenka is now the highest-ranked player left in the draw.

Pavlyuchenkova, who is 11 years younger than her next opponent Schiavone, will be playing her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. (photo courtesy of our reader Tony)

Maria Sharapova powered into the second week of Roland Garros, as well as the other favorites who were in action this Saturday.

The seventh-seeded Sharapova beat world No.129 Yung-Jan Chan of Chinese Taipei 6-2 6-3. It’s interesting that Sharapova won 15 straight games from her second-round match against Caroline Garcia to 4-0 in the first set against Chan. In the round of 16 Sharapova will face seed No.12 Agnieszka Radwanska, who came this far with straight-set victories over Patricia Mayr-Achleitner, Sania Mirza and Yanina Wickmayer.

The other players expected to do well at the tournament also had a successful seventh day of French Open 2011: Victoria Azarenka defeated Roberta Vinci 6-3 6-2, Li Na beat Sorana Cirstea 6-2 6-2, Andrea Petkovic progressed passed Jarmila Gajdosova 6-2 4-6 6-3, and Petra Kvitova defeated Vania King 6-4 6-2. (photo courtesy of our reader Tony)

Switzerland’s Patty Schnyder, 32, today announced her decision to retire from professional tennis and end her 17-year career. Her last singles match was a first-round defeat at the current French Open to Romanian Sorana Cirstea, while in doubles she and her partner Anna-Lena Groenefeld lost in the second round to top seeds Flavia Pennetta and Gisela Dulko.

The 2011 French Open was Schnyder’s 59th career Grand Slam appearance, and her best Grand Slam performance was a semifinal at the 2004 Australian Open. Schnyder’s career was successful in both singles and doubles. The Swiss won 11 WTA singles titles (in the 27 finals she played) and 5 doubles titles. Her highest career ranking in singles was No.7 (she was ranked in the Top 10 for 94 weeks), and in doubles it was No.15. Now at the moment of her retirement, Schyder’s singles ranking is No.55 and doubles No.124.

A good number of wins over world No.1 players enrich Schnyders biography: Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Serena Williams, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Steffi Graf, Jennifer Capriati, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, Amélie Mauresmo, Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki. (photo courtesy of Women Who Serve)

Women’s Tennis Blog, or better said me as a blogger behind it, has received a special recognition by BlogHer, the leading participatory news, entertainment and information network for women online which is reaching more than 20 million women monthly. BlogHer has numerous categories such as career, DIY, life, food, health, tech, style, family, book club, and others, and on the homepage of their new category of sports I got an honorary position of a featured blogger. Nice.

Favorites for the Roland Garros title keep falling like crazy, very early into the tournament already, and the latest to be sent home is world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki who was humbled by Daniela Hantuchova 6-1 6-3 in the third round.

In the first set, Wozniacki earned no break points and scored no winners (Hantuchova hit 15) and Hantuchova took the set in 27 minutes. In the second set Hantuchova raced to a 4-0 lead, and even though Wozniacki produced some sort of comeback it was the Slovakian who didn't allow her opportunity to be wasted and broke Wozniacki in the final game to advance to the fourth-round meeting with the 2009 French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova. Read more »

Both last year’s finalists were in action today. Defending champion Francesca Schiavone had an easy progress into the fourth round, as her opponent Peng Shuai retired with breathing problems at 6-3 1-2 (Schiavone won the first set). However, last year’s runner-up Samantha Stosur bowed out to unseeded Gisela Dulko – this match-up suggested a possible upset, especially because their both previous encounters were close, and the 51st-ranked Dulko recorded a 6-4 1-6 6-3 victory this time. Read more »

Thanks to Forty Deuce I learned about an excellent article from the New York Times about Maria Sharapova's brand and how she's been building it carefully from the beginning of her career. Somewhere in the middle of the article, they hint that the 24-year-old Sharapova plans to announce a new partnership ahead of the US Open. The partnership will work towards developing Sharapova’s own brand of candy and sweets resembling tennis balls, packaged in containers shaped like tennis-ball cans. The new brand will be called Sugarpova.

I have to mention one quote of a 13-year-old Sharapova which the New York Times article singles out. When little Sharapova was asked whether she would rather win Wimbledon or make $20 million in endorsements, she said without hesitation: "I would choose to win Wimbledon, because then the millions will come." That’s why we love her, she’s smart and has guts!

Sharapova already has lucrative contracts with Nike (estimated to be worth $70 million), Cole Haan, Tiffany, Tag Heuer and Sony Ericsson. According to Forbes, the Russian made $24.5 million from June 2009 to June 2010.

At the ongoing Roland Garros, Sharapova is one of the favorites for the big trophy, because of her recent Rome title, her status of a champion and her ever-present fighting spirit. In her today's second-round match, the seventh-seeded Russian, who doesn't accept the end until it's really there, won 11 straight games from being 6-3 4-1 down to beat world No.188 Caroline Garcia of France 3-6 6-4 6-0. The Nike design she's sporting at the claycourt Grand Slam is a yellow Eiffel Tower-inspired dress. (photo: sr_cranks)

Yet again women's tennis is proving that it's pointless to make any sort of prediction – Kim Clijsters was one of the favorites for the title, and even though she wasn't considered undefeatable, who would have thought she would lose in the second round to world No.114 Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands.

The 20-year-old Rus reached the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time, while Clijsters didn't continue her Grand Slam winning streak of 15 matches which included the 2010 US Open and 2011 Australian Open titles. Also, Clijsters had been 31-0 in Grand Slams against players ranked outside the Top 100, and this is her worst result at Roland Garros since her debut at the tournament in 2000. Read more »

Top seed and world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the third round of Roland Garros, but the match was much tougher than her 6-0 6-2 opener against Kimiko Date Krumm. In the second-round encounter with Canada's world No.162 Aleksandra Wozniack, the second set lasted 76 minutes and Wozniack had three set points in the tiebreak which the top-ranked Dane eventually won 8-6 for a 6-3 7-6 victory.

Just a day before Roland Garros Wozniacki won the Brussels Ladies Open. In the final there she had treatment for her left thigh, and she's still wearing a bandage.

Wozniacki's next opponent will be world No.29 Daniela Hantuchova, who defeated Sara Errani 6-1 6-2.

Samantha Stosur, last year's beaten finalist, crushed Romania's Simona Halep 6-0 6-2 and set up a meeting with Argentina's Gisela Dulko in the third round. Julia Goerges came back from a 2-6 2-4 deficit to overcome Lucie Safarova 2-6 7-5 6-2, while the 2009 French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Irina-Cameila Begu 6-1 6-1 in just 47 minutes. (photo courtesy of Tony)

The encounter between Andrea Petkovic and Bojana Jovanovski was one of the juiciest openers. Petkovic's experience prevailed and she won in straight sets 6-4 7-6(3).

The 50th-ranked Jovanovski had opportunities to win the second set, which would take the continuation of the match to tomorrow, because of darkness, but it was never to happen as Petkovic fought off all set points and capitalized on Jovanovski's inability to capitalize on her chances. Nevertheless, Jovanovski once again showed her potential and passed one more inevitable lesson from the tennis experience.

They were practically equal in the department of winners, Jovanovski hit 31 and Petkovic 30, but Petkovic made 23 unforced errors compared to Jovanovski's 41.

The 15th-seeded Petkovic, who came to Paris fresh off her Strasbourg title, will play world No.45 Lucie Hradecka in the second round. (photo: sr_cranks)