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Top seed Maria Sharapova reached the last 16 of the French Open on Saturday by defeating Karin Knapp of Italy 7-6 (7/4), 6-0.

As in the first two rounds though it was painful progress for the world No.1 whose power game and flat-hitting is ill-suited to the rigours of claycourt tennis.

Knapp, who reached her first WTA final in Antwerp in February, stayed the course in the first set until 3-3 before Sharapova grabbed the first break of the match.

Just talk about it. I mean, yesterday was a tough day, but today weather was a little better and you found some rhythm in the third set.

MARIA SHARAPOVA:
Yeah. It's just kind of been a strange tournament so far, from the first round, playing in very difficult conditions to a long wait yesterday.

I actually didn't think I was going to go on, you know, looking at the way the matches were going on our court. And then actually playing and, you know, playing quite well yesterday.

Maria was back on court today to complete her 2nd round match at Roland Garros which was suspended overnight due to bad light.  Maria defeated Bethanie Mattek of the United States 6-2 3-6 6-2 to advance to the 3rd round.

The 2nd set was 2-3 when play resumed today and Maria got off to a slow start as she won only 1 game out of the 4 games played, as Mattek won it 6-3.

In the 3rd set Maria took a 3-0 lead with consistent play, Mattek managed to get the break back by taking the next 2 games and then Maria wins 3 straight games to take game, set and match.  Maria won the match on a backhand return of serve.

It was quite hard today, so can you tell us about, I don't know, the conditions or what did give you so many problems today.

MARIA SHARAPOVA:
Me, myself, and I. (laughter.) Number one problem today. I started off well, and, you know, won the first set pretty comfortably. I kind of went downhill after that.

You know, she broke me in that first game. And, you know, credit to her. She started serving a lot better and making a lot of first serves, and the wind not giving me a lot of opportunities to, you know, to attack.