(REUTERS) -Top seed Serena Williams overcame a wobbly start to see off a determined Sloane Stephens 6-7(3), 6-2, 6-2 last Tuesday and advance to the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Open.Williams, playing her third match at Indian Wells after deciding to end a 14-year boycott of the event where she had suffered alleged racist abuse, enjoyed plenty of support but struggled early to find her form.

Stephens, who reached the quarter-finals a year ago, looked ready to return to the last eight after breaking Williams twice to open the match but in the end there was no denying Williams as she extended her winning run to 14 matches.
On another sun-bathed afternoon Stephens got the contest off to a bright start charging in front 3-0, but Williams, who has not lost since last year’s WTA Finals in Singapore, quickly got her game in gear sweeping through the next four games before her opponent could again hold serve.
Displaying plenty of grit of her own, Stephens dug in to force the opening set to a tiebreak that she dominated and playing with a greater urgency, Williams broke Stephens to open the second and broke her compatriot again to go up 5-2 before serving out the set to level the match.
The third set followed a similar script as Williams, playing her first event since winning her 19th grand slam title, and sixth at the Australian Open, recorded the early break to secure a 2-0 advantage. She broke again in the seventh game and held serve to close out a challenging test in two hours six minutes.
In other matches, 12th seeded Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro battled to a 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-1 win over Briton Heather Watson.

MISFIRING
Meanwhile, a misfiring Rafael Nadal had trouble hitting the mark but the third-seeded Spaniard still had enough to beat American Donald Young 6-4, 6-2 to advance to the fourth round of the tournament.
Nadal, a three-time champion at Indian Wells, looked out-of-sorts in a sloppy opening set slamming an easy overhead into the net to give Young an early break and then later double-faulting to hand over another.
But the 47th ranked Young was no better at finding the target, saving just two of eight break points as a fist-pumping Nadal walked off Stadium court at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden with the victory.
While the opening set was a comedy of unforced errors the second saw Nadal flash some of his top form as he raced to a 5-1 lead closing out the match in a tidy 80 minutes.
Ninth-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych had earlier kicked off another sunny day of action with a straight-forward 6-4, 6-2 win over American Steve Johnson.
Jack Sock, however, will carry the American flag into the round of 16 after rallying past 15th seeded Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Thirteenth-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon scored a comfortable 6-2, 7-5 victory over German qualifier Michael Berrer while Czech Lukas Rosol was a 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-6(3) winner over Dutchman Robin Haase.