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Madrid Masters – Tuesday Highlights

BySteve Nicholls|

Madrid Masters – Tuesday Highlights

Performance Of The Day

Doubts had began to swirl around the form of Maria Sharapova heading into Madrid, but a solid first-round performance was followed by a dominant straight sets victory over Marina Duque-Marino on Tuesday in Madrid.

The Russian had gone out early in some of the other tournaments she had competed in over the last two months, so the reigning Roland Garros champions was under fierce examination coming into Tuesday’s match-up.

However, she lost just three games to a player competing on her favourite surface, meaning Sharapova may just have convinced the doubters that she’s still a contender for the top tournaments at present.

Match Of The Day

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Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is a player who can beat anybody on her day, but also lose to anyone when she isn’t in the mood.

On Tuesday she really turned it on to take out former French Open finalist Sara Errani in three compelling sets, taking a dramatic second set tie-breaker to level matters up before winning 6-4 in the decider.

Errani tends to play her best stuff on clay, so for Pavyluchenkova to take the Italian down will serve as a massive confidence booster to the erratic Russian.

Shock Of The Day

There weren’t any massive upsets on Tuesday at the Madrid Masters, but Karolina Pliskova was a contender coming into this tournament given she had won the Prague Open at the weekend.

However, the Czech was taken out in three sets by youngster Caroline Garcia, losing 6-1 in the decider as the match drifted away from her.

Garcia is obviously a very talented player whose best years are still ahead of her, but not many would have expected her to eliminate an in-form Pliskova – but that is exactly what she did on Tuesday.

One To Look Forward To

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There is one match that sticks out like a sore thumb when looking at the schedule for Wednesday at the Madrid Masters.

It pits a current world number one against a former world number one as Serena Williams takes on Victoria Azarenka in the last-16 in the Spanish capital.

Azarenka’s recent injury problems means she has fallen down the rankings as of late, which explains why these two are squaring up against one another as early as this, with this match-up set to be a final clash in the not-so-distant future one would imagine.

Williams has had some epic clashes against the woman from Belarus and tomorrow could be yet another in the continuing installment.

The American is unbeaten in 2015 and Azarenka is looking to reassert herself at the top of the women’s game – something has to give.

Next: Madrid Pivotal For Nadal's Roland Garros Defence

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