Jankovic overcomes injury to progress

Third seed Jelena Jankovic battled through pain to reach the third round of the French Open today.

The Serbian hurt her forearm midway through the second set but fought on to seal a 6-2 7-6 (7/5) win against Marina Erakovic and set up a clash with 28th seed Dominika Cibulkova.

After winning the first set quite comfortably in 37 minutes, Jankovic started having problems with her right forearm in the fifth game of the second.

She took the game to go 3-2 up but called on the trainer and complained her forearm was swollen.

The arm was massaged and Jankovic took some painkillers before continuing.

The injury did not initially seem to affect the 23-year-old, who broke the next game to go 4-2 ahead.

But she was pegged back and received further treatment on her forearm in between games.

Erakovic, ranked 80 in the world and hailing from New Zealand, broke again to go 6-5 ahead but Jankovic did the same moments later to take the set to a tie-break, which she won.

Slovakia’s Cibulkova had earlier defeated Milagros Sequera 6-3 6-0 in 53 minutes on Court Five.

Eighth seed Venus Williams was also an early winner in overcast conditions on the fifth day, beating Tunisia’s Selima Sfar 6-2 6-4.

The American took the opening set at the first time of asking in 35 minutes but had more trouble in the second.

She was broken in the fifth game to go 3-2 down and then squandered a clutch of break points of her own before eventually succeeding to draw level at 3-3.

Williams moved 5-4 ahead and then broke again to clinch the match.

She will next play 26th seed Flavia Pennetta, the Italian who beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 3-6 6-1 6-1.

Elsewhere, unseeded Czech Iveta Benesova, a qualifier, beat Shuai Peng 6-4 6-3 to go through to the third round.