Justine Henin marched into the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Monday with a straightforward 6-2 6-2 defeat of a lacklustre Patty Schnyder. The top-seeded Belgian, bidding for the one title she needs to complete a career grand slam, needed just 56 minutes to end her Swiss opponent's weak challenge.
Things will probably get a good deal tougher for the 25-year-old in the last eight where Serena Williams awaits, should the American seventh seed overcome Slovak Daniela Hantuchova.
Henin did not bring her best game to the court on Monday, but did not need to against the normally gritty Schnyder. "I was a bit surprised the match was so quick, I was ready to have a good fight," Henin, who has dropped just 15 games so far, told reporters. "I've done my job perfectly so far and am just going to try to keep it going."
Schnyder lost her opening two service games with a catalogue of unforced errors and although she did get on the scoreboard when Henin dropped serve at 3-0 there was only ever going to be one outcome. The 28-year-old Schnyder, making her first foray into the fourth round here in her 12th appearance at Wimbledon, served three double faults to hand Henin a 4-1 lead.
Henin won the first set when, at 40-30, she had a forehand called out but a Hawkeye challenge showed she had been wronged. The point was replayed and Schnyder obliged by making a mess of a service return.
The pattern continued in the second set with Henin dominating behind her searing groundstrokes and Schnyder struggling to keep pace. Henin finished it off with a booming serve down the middle. Henin, who completed a hat-trick of French Open titles last month, said she had got lucky to stay on schedule despite the rain that has blighted the tournament. "It's pretty tough for everyone," she said, "but I've been lucky myself. Many others have not been so lucky. It's humid and very windy out there."
VENUS WINS: Three-times former champion Venus Williams survived a hair-raising third round match against Akiko Morigami of Japan on Monday and she said experience had helped her find the will to win 6-2 3-6 7-5.
Morigami was serving for the match in the third set when Williams found an extra gear and took control of the match to set up a fourth round encounter with world number two Maria Sharapova.
"Definitely one of my strong points is I'm a tough competitor and a huge fighter," Williams told a news conference. "In my experience, I just always feel like it should go my way. So I guess experience helps." The American former world number one, seeded 23 here, had seemed to be cruising when she eased to a convincing first set lead in the match which started on Saturday. But a double break by the Japanese player gave her a 4-1 lead before the weather intervened and halted play until Monday.
WIMBLEDON WOMEN'S SINGLES RESULTS: Wimbledon women's singles results on Monday (prefix number denotes seeding, * new result)
FOURTH ROUND: 1-Justine Henin (Belgium) beat 15-Patty Schnyder (Switzerland) 6-2 6-2
THIRD ROUND:
-- 23-Venus Williams (US) beat Akiko Morigami (Japan) 6-2 3-6 7-5
-- Tamira Paszek (Austria) beat 12-Elena Dementieva (Russia) 3-6 6-2 6-3
-- 11-Nadia Petrova (Russia) beat Virginia Ruano Pascual (Spain) 6-3 7-6(3)
-- 6-Ana Ivanovic (Serbia) beat Aravane Rezai (France) 6-3 6-2
-- 5-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia) beat Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) 6-2 6-3
-- 14-Nicole Vaidisova (Czech Republic) beat Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) 6-4 6-2.