Madrid: Sania Mirza and her Chinese Taipei partner Chia-Jung Chuang moved to the doubles pre-quarterfinals of the euro 3,500,000 Madrid Masters after defeating wildcards Ma Emilia Salerni and Silvia Soler Espinosa in straight sets.

Sania-Chuang defeated the Argentine-Spanish pair 6-3, 6-4 in their opening match.

They will next take on the second seeded pair of Anabel Median Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual, who got a bye in the first round.

Sania could not make it to the singles main draw as she lost the first round of the qualifiers to France’s Aravane Rezai 3-6, 3-6.

In the women’s singles, fourth seeded Jelena Jankovic defeated Daniela Hantuchova 7-5, 6-2 while ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki beat Varvara Lepchenko of the United States 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the third round on Tuesday. The Dane will play either Venus Williams or Alisa Kleybanova. Other second-round winners included Italy’s Francesca Schiavone and Agnes Szavay of Hungary.

It was against Schiavone that World No. 2 Serena Williams retired hurt in the first round after losing the first set 4-6.

Meanwhile, World No. 8 Fernando Verdasco continued his fine form with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over fellow Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero in the men’s second. Verdasco broke into the top 10 for the first time in February and has reached at least the last eight in all seven tournaments he has played this season.

The seventh seed broke Ferrero, a former French Open champion and World No. 1, five times on the clay at the Magic Box stadium and sealed victory on his second match point with a forehand winner.

Spanish 16th seed Tommy Robredo put out American Mardy Fish 3-6, 7-6(7-5), 6-2 while Russian 10th seed Nikolay Davydenko beat Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-2, 6-2 in the first round.