AMELIE MAURESMO revealed an abductor injury was one of the main factors behind her exit at the hands of an inspired Lucie Safarova at the French Open yesterday. The Frenchwoman, seeded fifth, played with strapping round the top of her right leg for much of her 6-3 7-6 (7/3) third-round defeat to the 25th seed on Philippe Chatrier court.

Mauresmo, who is yet to win the singles at Roland Garros in 13 attempts, admitted she has been hampered with the problem for a while.

"I felt something in my abductors, but I have struggled with it for a few weeks now, " she said. "It is something that hasn't been going right for a few months now on my body. It didn't help."

Despite the injury, Mauresmo was able to go 3-0 up in both sets, before imploding at the hands of the everimproving Safarova, of the Czech Republic. Safarova won six games on the spin to take the first set, and then recovered from just as poor a start in the second to draw level at 3-3. After three held service games apiece, the match went into a tie-break.

Safarova, who beat Mauresmo in the last 16 of the Australian Open earlier this year, took an early mini-break to go 4-3 ahead, and then a textbook wide serve and approach left her two points from a win. Mauresmo then sent a backhand long and a basic forehand into the net to gift the Czech the match.

The Wimbledon champion has only recently returned from surgery on her appendix, and she admitted she had not expected to go far in the tournament. "I've been struggling for weeks now, and I was just taking it match by match, " added the 27-yearold, who is the highest-profile casualty in the women's draw so far. "I didn't really expect great things to happen, and that's a little bit sad to say. It shows that when you are not prepared the way you should be, it is very difficult. It was the result of a few weeks of struggle."

Safarova said she had tried to block out the fact that Mauresmo may have been struggling with an injury. "I saw that she was taping her leg, so I knew that she had some injury, " said the 20year-old. "But at the beginning of the second set, she was improving her game and was playing much better than in the first set before she taped her leg. I thought maybe it was not so serious and that I would have to play more aggressively."

She will next play ninthseed Anna Chakvetadze who defeated Ai Sugiyama 6-4 64 in the second match on Suzanne Lenglen.

Meanwhile, Maria Sharapova denied suggestions that competing at Roland Garros with a shoulder injury could threaten her participation at Wimbledon, as well as future events this year. The Russian, seeded second here, beat Alla Kudryavtseva 6-1 6-4 to progress into the fourth round. It was her third consecutive straight-sets win of the tournament, even though she has admitted she is playing through the pain barrier as a result of her shoulder woes of the past two months.

"Everyone is going to have suggestions and opinions and in my career, I'm going to have a lot of these. But the most important person in this situation is myself and I listen to myself."

Sharapova revealed she has been having up to an hour and a half 's strengthening and exercising treatment on her shoulder injury every day during this tournament. She produced a mixed bag against Kudryavtseva in the all-Russian clash. She will play Israel's Shahar Peer, the 15th seed, who beat Slovakia's Katarina Srebotnik 6-1 4-6 6-3.

Elsewhere Ana Ivanovic, the seventh seed, lost just two games in sealing a victory against Romania's Ioana Raluca Olaru. The Serbian joined compatriot and fellow top-10 player Jelena Jankovic in the fourth round by easing to a 6-2 6-0 victory on Suzanne Lenglen court.

Ivanovic will next play Anabel Medina Garrigues, who upset 12th-seed Daniela Hantuchova 6-4 7-6 (7/2) 7-5 on Court Two.