French Open: Serena Williams books place in Roland Garros quarter-final
Wednesday 1 June 2016 18:58, UK
Serena Williams booked her place in the French Open quarter-finals after comfortably defeating Elina Svitolina in straight sets on Wednesday.
It took the reigning champion just over an hour to win the match 6-1 6-1, in a devastatingly powerful performance against 21-year-old Svitolina.
It was an intimidating start from Williams who took charge from the outset, breaking at the first time of asking as she continues her quest for a 22nd major title.
Svitolina was unable to find form with her serve and backhand, allowing 34-year-old Williams to force the Ukrainian into a number of errors as she breezed through the first set on the Philippe-Chatrier Court.
Svitolina finally broke to get onto the scoreboard, taking the fifth game of the opening set but for Williams it was just another day at the office, with the world No 1 closing out the match in comfortable fashion.
Up next for Williams will be the unseeded Yulia Putintseva who surprised 12th seed Carla Suarez Navarro with a 7-5 7-5 victory.
Elsewhere, Venus Williams' Roland Garros campaign came to an end after she was defeated 6-2 6-4 by Timea Bacsinszky, losing to the Swiss for the first time in her career.
The elder Williams sister, who enjoyed wins over Bacsinszky at the 2008 Olympic Games and the US Open two years ago, struggled to retrieve balls from deep and, having lead the first set 2-0, dropped eight games in a row as the Swiss world No 9 seized control.
Bacsinszky, a semi-finalist at last year's French Open, will make it to that stage again if she sees off Kiki Bertens, who defeated Madison Keys 7-6 6-3.
Two of the women's quarter-finals were completed as organisers finally got a full day's plan to get the event almost back on track.
Sam Stosur booked her place in the last four with a straight sets win over unseeded Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova.
The Australian, a finalist at Roland Garros in 2010, moved into her fourth semi-final in Paris in eight years with a 6-4 7-6 victory that sets up a last four showdown with Garbine Mugurza.
The Venezuelan-born Spaniard who reached the Wimbledon final last year is seeded fourth and has looked the most likely challenger to Serena Williams and she underlined that by coming from behind to beat Shelby Rogers.
Rogers, the unseeded American who had already seen off three seeds including two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, had the advantage of an early break in the opening set by Muguruza rallied to win 7-5 6-3 and reach her first Paris semi-final.
