Samantha Stosur has been sent packing in the opening round of the Rome WTA tournament by Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Big-hitting Pavlyuchenkova defeated Stosur 6-4 6-7 (7-5) 6-1 in a see-sawing battle that lasted over two-and-a-half hours.
The loss is a blow to Stosur who would have been hoping for more court time in the lead-up to the French Open in Paris, in just under two weeks.
At the end of the second set, Stosur had all the momentum after reeling off the last three points of the tiebreak with some big forehand winners.
Pavyluchenkova looked despondent at the end of the set but she held serve early, immediately breaking Stosur with a fine display of power-hitting before rolling through the final set.
While Stosur stumbled on her preferred surface there were no issues for Maria Sharapova.
Taking advantage of another wildcard upon her return from a doping ban, Sharapova overcame a shaky opening set to defeat 58th-ranked American Christina McHale 6-4 6-2 in the first round.
Sharapova was broken in the opening game and went on to drop serve twice in the first set before finding her groove.
A three-time champion in Rome, Sharapova is rediscovering her form after returning to the WTA Tour following a 15-month ban.
Tournament organisers were criticised for giving a wildcard to Sharapova instead of former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone, an Italian but fans cheered and held up signs of encouragement for the Russian.
Sharapova's next opponent will be Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who beat former French Open finalist Lucie Safarova 7-5 4-6 6-3 and she could face top-ranked Angelique Kerber in the third round.
Sharapova edged Lucic-Baroni in three tough sets in Madrid last week but then lost to Eugenie Bouchard.
With her ranking at 211 in the world, Sharapova does not qualify directly for the top tournaments.
At the start, McHale was able to run down balls in the corners and make Sharapova play extra shots, which she often missed.
But once the second set began, Sharapova was in control and began to resemble the player who won the trophy at the Foro Italico in 2011, 2012 and 2015.
On a day where the upsets were kept to a minimum the only seeded casualty was Russian 11th seed Elena Vesnina who fell to Chinese qualifier Qiang Wang 6-2 6-4.
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