“Francesca is a claycourt player — she hits topspin and slice so well, so I just tried to play my tennis and keep her running,” Li said. “She’s a top player so you never know what will happen and when she will come back in the match, but when we went into the tiebreak I told myself it was my chance to do it. Before this tournament, people said I couldn’t do well on claycourts. Now I think they will change their minds.”

Schiavone beat France’s own Marion Bartoli 6-3, 6-3, mixing up her game to confound the two-hander who committed 18 unforced errors to 11 winners.

“I started too slow, absolutely too slow,” Schiavone said. “The key was to hit three, four, five, six, seven balls, but I couldn’t arrive at three, four. That was the way to win — if I went to the net in one shot, there was no way to win. From 4-1 down I played two really good games then she went a little bit down.”

Li will next face No. 4 seed Victoria Azarenka, who advanced easily 6-2, 6-3 over unseeded Russian Ekaterina Makarova.

“Solutions don’t come from heaven,” Nadal said. “I mean, you can’t change everything in one day. And you know what? I had not forgotten how to play tennis for a week, but I played better today.”

“I feel relieved when I look at the score or the match after playing three tiebreaks in Madrid against him,” Federer said of his fellow 29 year old. “It’s definitely slower than Madrid. So I think Feliciano was maybe not getting the free points he was looking and hoping for. The important thing from my side was to be solid in my own serve, which I was all the way through from start to finish, and I thought I played a good match.”

“I don’t think I have a big chance for the title here because I have never reached further than the third round in a Grand Slam, so we shouldn’t be talking here about winning a Grand Slam,” she said.

Kim Clijsters is back from injury and seeded No. 2. It will be interesting to see if the Belgian can quickly up her game to the physical and mental rigors of the red clay. Clijsters will start against Belarus’ Anastasiya Yakimova, and is looking at a possible third-rounder against No. 25 seed Maria Kirilenko, and fourth round against No. 7 Maria Sharapova, facing a Russian “Maria” onslaught.

Notes: Troubled former No. 1 Dinara Safina floats seedlessly in the draw, starting against China’s Xinyun Han, then a possible meeting with (5) Safarova; (8) Jovanovski a tough start against Tanasugarn, and (1) Schiavone vs. Dokic; last year Kleybanova beat the now-retired Elena Dementieva to win her first WTA title in Kuala Lumpur.

On the court in Wednesday quarterfinal action will be (25) Petra Kvitova vs. (2) Vera Zvonareva, and (12) Agnieszka Radwanska vs. (3) Kim Clijsters.