INDIAN WELLS, California - US Open champion Sam Stosur of Australia made a premature exit at the Indian Wells WTA tournament with a see-sawing 6-1 6-7 7-6 loss to Russian Nadia Petrova in the third round on Monday.

Sixth-seeded Stosur was broken when serving for the match at 6-5 in the third set and the Russian capitalised by holding her serve and sealing a hard-fought victory 7-5 in the tiebreak.

The Australian had been swept aside by the big-serving Petrova in the opening set and then saved one match point in the second set tiebreak before clawing her way back to level.

Petrova, beaten 7-6 6-7 7-5 by Stosur at last year's US Open in the tournament's longest women's match of the tie-break era, squealed with delight after the Australian pushed a forehand wide to end an encounter lasting nearly three hours.

"I am very excited to be back," a beaming Petrova said in a courtside interview at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden after beating Stosur for the fifth time in seven meetings.

"This is only my third win of the year and you could see it when I was just about to close the match. I was a bit tentative.

"My serve was working incredibly (well) until the end of the second set," added the Russian, who fired down 15 aces in the match. "At the end, it was just spot on."

Petrova, who raised both arms skywards to celebrate her fifth successive appearance in the fourth round at Indian Wells, was delighted to gain a measure of revenge for her defeat at last year's US Open.

New York Turnaround

"After that loss in New York it's been hard," said the 29-year-old Russian, a winner of 10 WTA Tour titles. "I wanted to turn everything around. I wanted to win and walk off the court with a 'W'.

"It was a tough battle in the third set, and I was really pumped when I broke her at 6-5. When she was serving for the match. I was pumped. I knew this was my time to win the match."

The Russian, a former top-three player whose ranking has slipped to 33rd, will next meet fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko who beat Spaniard Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-2 4-6 6-4.

In other matches on Monday, seventh-seeded Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli pummeled South African Chanelle Scheepers 6-2 6-0 and Italy's Roberta Vinci battled past Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 6-7 6-0 6-4.

Czech Lucie Safarova also advanced when former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone became the latest victim of the widespread viral infection at Indian Wells.

The 10th-seeded Schiavone, who won her only grand slam singles title at Roland Garros in 2010, withdrew because of a stomach virus when trailing Safarova 2-6.

Defending champion Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark was scheduled to play Swede Sofia Arvidsson in the third round later on Monday.