Venus Williams grinds out win over Shuai Peng at Indian Wells

Venus Williams had to struggle, but advanced to the quarterfinals of BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., by beating Shuai Peng of China 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 in a fourth-round match Tuesday.

The 12th-seeded Williams will next play the winner of Tuesday's late match between second-seeded Angelique Kerber and Elena Vesina.

Williams is playing in just her second tournament since reaching the finals of the Australian Open and this is her first event since losing to Kristina Mladenovic in the first round of the tournament in St. Petersburg, Russia, back on Feb. 2.

After splitting the first two sets on Tuesday, Williams found herself behind 3-2 in the third set when she had her serve broken. But Williams broke back at love on her way winning the final four games of the match.

In other matches, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia upset fifth-seeded Dominika Cibulkova 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.

Pavlyuchenkova had 35 winners to 23 unforced errors, while Cibulkova's had just 15 winners and 14 errors.

After losing the second set, Pavlyuchenkova sprinted out to a quick 3-0 lead in the third set to take control of the match.

Pavlyuchenkova will next face countrywoman Svetlana Kuznetsova, the No. 8 seed, who got past Carolina Garcia of France 6-1, 6-4.