Rome: Ana Ivanovic's preparations for her French Open title defence suffered a setback on Wednesday when she was knocked out of the Italian Open in the third round with a 6-1 3-6 6-4 defeat by Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska.

Dinara Safina was also in trouble but the world number one showed superb spirit to come back from 5-2 down in the final set to beat Chinese 14th seed Zheng Jie 5-7 6-1 7-6 and set up a quarter-final against Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.

In the last eight Radwanska will face Venus Williams after the American scraped past Russian Anna Chakvetadze 6-0 6-7 6-4.

Serbian fifth seed Ivanovic, yet to win a title this year, looked on the way to victory at 4-0 up in the final set, after having fought back from set down, but she contrived to lose the following six games.

Ivanovic had tidied up her act in the second set of the match at the Rome tournament, which is played on clay like the French Open, after making an inept start and losing the first set in just 23 minutes.

Like Ivanovic, Safina also left her best tennis at home but she made up for it with determination.

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