Top seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia crashed out of the Italian Open in her first game on Wednesday, losing 6-4 5-7 6-2 to Bulgarian qualifier Tsvetana Pironkova.

Former world number one Venus Williams, seeded seven, beat Australian Samantha Stosur 6-4 6-1 in a second-round game postponed from Tuesday because of rain to join Pironkova in the third round. Fifth seed Serena Williams, who like her sister Venus is a former Italian Open champion, faces Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko later on Wednesday in another match that was bumped over from Tuesday.

Russian world number two Maria Sharapova will start her Rome campaign later against Slovak Dominika Cibulkova.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.