In another mouthwatering clash at the Madrid Masters, two heavyweights in Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams collide at the quarterfinal stage.

Sharapova has had a decent year so far as she has reached the finals and also won her first tournament of the year at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. She started the season at the Australian Open and was on song until the final where she was outclassed by World No.1 Victoria Azarenka. In March, she managed to reach the finals of both Indian Wells and the Miami Sony Ericsson Open but was beaten on both occasions. She finally got some payback from her arch-rival at the high-profile Stuttgart event, when she beat Azarenka in the final of the event. Sharapova has brushes aside all her opponents so far and has hardly had to break sweat yet here on the blue clay of Madrid.

Williams suffered a fourth round defeat at the Australian Open in the start of the season and missed a series of events due to an injury in February. She skipped Indian Wells Open this year as well and was a quarter-finalist in Miami. In her first event on clay, Williams assembled her fiercest arrows to shoot down players like Samantha Stosur, Sabine Lisicki and won the title in Charleston. Here at Madrid, she looked to be in the same form and raced past Elena Vesnina and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the opening rounds. She did however, have to dig deep in order to over come former World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the previous round where she won 1-6,6-2,6-3.

There matches are always looked forward to by tennis lovers and are always highly competitive. Hence, a 7 to 2 lead held by Serena is surprising. Williams has also won their last six encounters which gives Sharapova a lot more incentive.

TennisEarth picks Serena to edge past the Russian in a hard-fought match.