Top seed Ivanovic falls to qualifier in Rome

By Paul Virgo

ROME (Reuters) - Serbian top seed Ana Ivanovic exited the Italian Open in her first game on Wednesday, losing 6-4 5-7 6-2 to Bulgarian qualifier Tsvetana Pironkova.

Russian world number two Maria Sharapova survived a scare to beat unseeded Slovak Dominika Cibulkova 6-2 3-6 6-4 in her second round match but the other top seeds had less trouble.

Former world number one Venus Williams beat Australian Samantha Stosur 6-4 6-1 while her fifth-seeded sister Serena also joined Sharapova and Pironkova in the third round with a resounding 6-2 6-0 win over Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko.

Serbian title holder Jelena Jankovic, the fourth seed, progressed in straight sets too with a 6-1 6-4 victory over Italy's Flavia Pennetta.

Russian third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, who lost to Jankovic in last year's final, had an easy 6-2 6-0 win over Belarusian Olga Govortsova.

Ivanovic made an untidy start with too many groundstrokes finding the net or going long and she soon went down a break, but she broke back in the ninth game only to fail to hold immediately after and concede the set.

UNFORCED ERRORS

The world number three twice surrendered a break advantage in the second set and let a string chances to take the Bulgarian's serve again go begging before she finally managed to level things up.  Continued...