Venus vaults into Eastbourne quarter-final

Venus Williams moved closer to top form with a 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Ana Ivanovic in a battle of former number one players at the Eastbourne grass-court event on Wednesday. Victory for the five-time Wimbledon winner, who is joining her sister Serena in a return from long-term absence this week, took her into the quarter-finals at the Wimbledon warm-up event on the English south coast.
"I feel I'm playing very tough, playing well on big points," said Venus, who last competed at the tournament 13 years ago. "I just need to continue. "These matches have been huge and crucial for me to just get back literally into the swing of things. I'm focusing on all the positives, and I think there's a lot of them.
"Taking the amount of time off (five months) I have taken, it's so important to focus on those positives." With Wimbledon starting next Monday, the Williams pair have little time to regain their touch. "To win a match is the ultimate goal," said Venus. "Just to have the opportunity to play another match is a great start. "I'm excited to be able to play a third match, I just need matches," added the American, who turns 31 on Friday.
Sister Serena is playing for the first time in a year after two operations on a foot she cut after last year's Wimbledon followed by further surgery in February to remove blood clots from her lungs. The 13-time Grand Slam-winner aims for the last eight at Devonshire Park later on Wednesday when she faces Russian top seed Vera Zvonareva.
That match will be a re-run of the 2010 Wimbledon final won by the American last July, which was her last match before this week. World number 33 Venus spent just over an hour on court as she halted the patchy progress of 2008 French Open champion Ivanovic.
Ivanovic went top of the WTA ranking after that Roland Garros success but the photogenic Serb now stands a distant 18th and failed to duplicate the form that took her to the semi-finals last weekend on grass in Birmingham. Williams, whose last matches were at the Australian Open before an abdominal injury set in, fired six aces and broke her opponent's serve four times.
Third seed Victoria Azarenka eliminated the last of the British players as she put out Elena Baltacha 6-1, 7-6 (7/0), while Czech fifth seed Petra Kvitova defeated holder Ekaterina Makarova 7-6 (10/8), 7-6 (7/4). Australian Samantha Stosur, the number seven seed, beat young Serb Bojana Jovanovski 6-3, 6-2.
Current and former Roland Garros winners were due on court later, with 2011 Paris champion Li Na facing Slovak Daniela Hantuchova and last year's champion Francesca Schiavone playing Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. In the men's draw, Bulgarian Gregor Dimitrov upset South African sixth seed Kevin Anderson 6-3, 6-2.