Third seed Victoria Azarenka reached the French Open quarter-finals for the third time on Monday with a 6-3, 6-0 win over 2010 champion Francesca Schiavone. The double Australian Open champion will now face Russian 12th seed Maria Kirilenko for a semi-final place.
The protagonists know each other well, not least as erstwhile doubles partners - they were notably runners-up at the 2011 Australian Open while Azarenka saw off Kirilenko in the London Olympics bronze medal match last summer. In her fourth round match, Kirilenko, despite needing treatment for a sore shoulder, saw off unseeded Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States 7-5, 6-4 to reach the last eight at Roland Garros for the first time after recovering from losing the opening three games.
The 26-year-old from Moscow, who broke in the sixth and eighth games to make up for her slow start and then overcame an opening service loss at the start of the second set, has now equalled her best ever Grand Slam showing of runs to the quarters at Wimbledon 2012 and the Australian Open three seasons ago. Schiavone, the world number 50, matched the 23-year-old Azarenka shot for shot and scream for scream in a first set which featured six breaks of serve.
But the pair's nine-year age difference told in the second set, which Azarenka swept through in just 26 minutes, having reeled off nine straight games. "I think it was the most composed and the most consistent match so far," said Azarenka. "The beginning was back and forth. I feel like I didn't take all of the opportunities but there was kind of a build-up to later on that I was doing the right thing." The French Open is the only Grand Slam where Azarenka has failed to get beyond the quarter-finals.