ROME: Venus Williams will take on her sister Serena in the second round of the Italian Open after battling past Elise Mertens 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (7/4) in Rome on Monday.

Williams came out on top of a tight contest that went all the way to a third-set tie-break despite her winning five games on the bounce, letting the Belgian back in by missing six match points on her serve in the eighth game.

She missed a further two match points as Mertens battled to level the set at 6-6, before finally taking the match in the tie-break and setting up a headline-grabbing clash with her 10th-seed sibling.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Press), 2019
 

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