Maria the villain but boos can't stop her grunt to victory

The world No 2 is into the last eight thanks to a formidable display of willpower that proved too much for Switzerland's Patty Schnyder and an ultimately hostile crowd at Roland Garros.

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Sealed with a kiss: Maria Sharapova blows a kiss to the hostile crowd

Powered by pain-killers and an intense dislike of defeat, Sharapova saved two match points in coming through 3-6, 6-4, 9-7 after two hours and 37 minutes of sometimes acrimonious combat.

Three times the diminutive Swiss left-hander, who glides around so beautifully on the clay, had served for the match and twice she had a point to finish it off, only to be thwarted at every turn by Siberian stubbornness.

Sharapova has long since shown that her angelic features are deceptive and every point in the 77-minute final set was accompanied by the pumping up of both her fist and the volume on her grunts.

Schnyder was not always impressed and the match was punctuated with glares down the court and a protest in the penultimate game when the umpire let stand a serve which the Swiss claimed she was not ready for.

The crowd, already with the lesser player after Sharapova had been warned for timewasting, jeered the second seed thereafter but the victor was unrepentant.

"It's pretty hard being a tennis player and Mother Teresa at the same time," said the ex-Wimbledon champion. "You are playing an individual sport and fighting for every point. I believe in myself and it felt great to win the match."

She can now attempt to go further than she has ever managed at this event, provided her shoulder can recover for her to take on her slightly loopy compatriot, ninth seed Anna Chakvetadze.

Sharapova said that she might take today off to rest and while there is something lacking in the power of her serve, it really cannot be so bad if she is able to come through a match like this.

The state of her shoulder is responsible for Sharapova having played only five tournaments this year and her modest 14-5 record meant that her exit here would hardly have been an upset.

The intended cure has been rest and a cortisone injection with the option of an operation shelved.

But it has not eroded her competitive edge, as evidenced by the way she refused to let go of Schnyder, attacking the net more as the decider went on.

Schnyder led by a break from the start of the last set and had her match points at 5-4 and 7-6, each time being kept in a rally before making a mistake.

A hitherto flat men's event has been lacking a match to shake it up properly after Roger Federer saw off Russian Mikael Youzhny 7-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals.

But now reigning champion Rafael Nadal must come through today's seismic fourth round against Lleyton Hewitt.

The Australian has been quietly formidable so far in this tournament and if Nadal, who has played a lot of tennis of late, shows any signs of fatigue he could be in trouble against the man who ran him close in the recent Hamburg semi-final.

The British grass court season starts today at Surbiton in Surrey.

One hopes the British effort at Roland Garros is not the shape of things to come, with the two juniors in action yesterday, David Rice and Daniel Evans, losing first-round matches in straight sets.