Schiavone reaches Rome quarterfinals

ROME, May 12 (UPI) -- Italian Francesca Schiavone rallied to a three-set win over Daniela Hantuchova Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the Italian Open tennis tournament.

Schiavone, the French Open champion who is seeded second in the $2.05 million Rome tournament, dropped the first set to the Slovak 3-6 before bouncing back to take the next two sets 6-2, 7-5. Their match took 2 hours, 39 minutes to complete.

Schiavone will meet Australian Samantha Stosur, the No. 6 seed, in the quarterfinals. Stosur beat Slovenian qualifier Polona Hercog 6-3, 6-4 to advance.

Fourth-seeded Chinese Li Na defeated Aussie Jarmila Gajdosova 6-2, 6-1, and it took fifth-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic three sets to oust Spanish qualifier Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.

In another third-round match, Hungarian Greta Arn overcame Russian Elena Vesnina 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-3) in a grueling 3 hours, 10 minutes.

The winner of this event will earn $360,000.