Austrian fourth seed Dominic Thiem rallied from a set down to battle past Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics into the third round of the Italian Open on Wednesday.

US Open champion Thiem, a semi-finalist in Madrid last week, won 3-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-0 in 2hr 33min against 44th-ranked Fucsovics in the clay-court tournament which acts as a warm-up for the French Open.

Thiem, twice a runner-up at Roland Garros, will next play Italian Lorenzo Sonego who beat wildcard Gianluca Mager 6-4, 6-4.

Sixth seed Alexander Zverev of Germany eased past Bolivian Hugo Dellien 6-2, 6-2 to set up a third round meeting with Japan’s Kei Nishikori.

Russian Andrey Rublev, seventh seed, advanced past Germany Jan-Lennard Struff 6-7 (7/9), 6-1, 6-4.

Stefanos Tsitsipas passed an opening-round test against Marin Cilic 7-5, 6-2 to reach the fourth round. He wil face Matteo Berrettini, who defeated John Millman 6-4, 62.

Karatsev ousts Medvedev: Russian third seed Daniil Medvedev crashed out with a straight sets defeat to compatriot Aslan Karatsev in round two.

Karatsev, ranked 27th, won 6-2, 6-4 against world number two Medvedev.  Karatsev next plays American Reilly Opelka, ranked 47th, in the third round.

Barty eases into third round: World number one Ashleigh Barty advanced to the third round with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Kazakh Yaroslava Shvedova.

Days after her shock defeat in the Madrid Open final, the Australian overcame an early break of serve to see off Shvedova.

Barty dropped her opening service game but rallied to level at 4-4, taking control of the match against Shvedova on the red clay of the Foro Italico.

Barty will next meet 28th-ranked Russian Veronika Kudermetova as she bids for a first Rome quarter-final on her third appearance.

Kudermetova beat France’s 56th-ranked Caroline Garcia 6-4, 6-4.

Former Rome champion Karolina Pliskova, seeded ninth, also advanced past Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 6-2, 6-3.

Czech Pliskova built on her powerful serve and converted six of her 13 break point chances.

The former world number one next plays Russian Vera Zvonareva who ousted Czech 11th seed Petra Kvitova 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

Fifth seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine dropped a set before advancing past American Amanda Anisimova 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Serena crashes out: Serena Williams, playing the 1000th WTA match of her career, lost on her return after nearly three months away to Nadia Podoroska in the second round.

The 39-year-old eighth seed fell 7-6 (8/6), 7-5 in under just two hours to the 44th-ranked Argentine, a surprise semi-finalist at last year’s Roland Garros.

The early exit is a blow three weeks before the French Open in Paris on May 30 where the American continues her bid to equal Australia’s Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam trophies.

Despite a battling performance Serena could not wear down the 24-year-old Argentine who broke the American twice in the first set.

Podoroska forced a tie-break with an ace and squandered three set points before sealing the set.

In the second, Williams was trailing 5-2 but held and broke the Argentine to love while she served for the match to level at 5-5.

Podoroska held her nerve to earn three match points to secure just her third career win over a top-10 player, all in the last eight months.

For Williams it was her 149th defeat, with 851 wins over the course of a WTA career covering 1000 matches.

But she will not get to celebrate with the Rome public, with spectators only allowed from Thursday’s third round at the Foro Italico while limited to a 25 percent capacity.

Podoroska next meets Croatia’s Petra Martic, who earlier beat France’s Kristina Mladenovic 7-5, 6-3.

Agencies