Ninth seeded and former World No 1 American Serena Williams squares against upcoming Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the second round match of 2012 Madrid Open on Tuesday.

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 feircest arrows to shoot down players like Samantha Stosur, Sabine Lisicki and won the title in Charleston. Here at Madrid, she looked to be in same form and raced past Elena Vesnina 6-3, 6-1.

Her opponent - Pavlyuchenkova has poor 3-11 win loss record this year and has 3 career titles to her name so far.

Both players have met twice before and Williams has won each of them. Last time they met at 2011 U.S Open where she won 7-5, 6-1.

TennisEarth Pick: Williams to win in straight sets.