Maria is through to her fifth quarter-final at Roland Garros after she defeated No.12 seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 7-6 7-5 in 2 hours.

This is Maria's ninth match win in a row dating back to Rome.

In the first set, Maria got off to a slow start as she found herself down 4-1 but she worked her way back to level the set 4-4.  Both players then held their two service games to force a tie-break.  Maria won the tie-break 7-4 when she hit a powerful serve that Radwanska couldn't deal with.

Maria raced into a 2-0 lead in the second set but Radwanska pegged Maria back as she levelled the set 2-2.  Maria wins only one more game as Radwanska builds a 5-3 lead.  Radwanska is serving for the set at 40-0 but Maria breaks back to get the set back on serve.  Maria wins the next 3 games to move into the quarters when Radwanska hits a shot wide.

After the win, Maria said: "I played smart when I needed to be smart and was patient at the right times. This tournament is one I've always said would be the most challenging for me to win, but I've always worked really hard on trying to get myself prepared as well as I could for it, physically and mentally, knowing sometimes you have to be more patient than in points in other tournaments."

Maria will play No.15 seed, Andrea Petkovic of Germany in the quarters on Wednesday.  They have played three times before and Maria leads the series 2-1 - all threee meetings were on hardcourts and Maria won the last meeting in March this year.

On playing Petkovic: "We played in Melbourne. Also in played Miami, you know, a month or so ago. Yeah, she's a very tough opponent. She is also quite good on this surface and moves very well. She'll use that to her advantage. But, yeah, it'll be tough. I'll go out there and try to win that match."

In the WTA rankings, Maria provisionally moves up to No.6 with 4821 points.

Talk here with other Maria fans about the match.