Reigning champion Jelena Jankovic barely had to break sweat on Wednesday as she coasted into the WTA Rome claycourt International quarter-finals when Kateryna Bondarenko retired with an illness. Their third round match had been uncompetitive before the Ukrainian's retirement with third seed Jankovic charging to a 6-1, 1-0 lead before the end came.
It was a far cry from the Serbian's clash against Argentine clay specialist Gisela Dilko the previous day which lasted almost two hours. World number four Jankovic will play either seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova or home hope and 12th seed Flavia Pennetta in the last eight.
Jankovic said she didn't want the match to finish that way but was looking forward to hitting the shops on her afternoon off. "I would have loved to finish the match because I was playing pretty well in that first set," she said. In another early match sixth seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus thrashed ninth seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki 6-2, 6-2.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009

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