Serena Williams battled for nearly three and a half hours to beat Vera Dushevina in the first round of Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open, even saving match point en route to the win.
Williams, ranked No.1 in the world for a 102nd career week this week and the Premier event's top seed, got past Dushevina, 67(2) 76(5) 76(5). She had three set points in the first set, both on the Russian's serve - one at 5-4, two at 6-5 - but didn't convert. And in the second set she saved a match point down 6-5.
In the third, Williams squandered a 5-2 lead and would eventually have to fight back from 0-4 in the tie-break to pull out the three-hour, 26-minute victory.
It was the longest match of the 12-time Grand Slam champion's career.
Williams fell to Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, 46 63 76(5), despite holding match point at 5-4 in the deciding set.
In the other two second round matches on Monday, No.15 seed Francesca Schiavone cruised past Sybille Bammer, 62 61, and later on, No.4 seed Venus Williams faced Vera Zvonareva.
The first round also wrapped up, with No.8 seed Samantha Stosur, No.13 seed Li Na, No.14 seed Flavia Pennetta and No.16 seed Nadia Petrova winning.
Li, China's No.1 player, has pledged to donate all of her prize money from Madrid to relief efforts for the recent Yushu earthquakes in China.
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