American sisters Serena and Venus Williams powered on towards a likely gol-medal showdown with easy second-round wins in the Olympic singles on Tuesday.
Serena needed just 44 minutes to blow away Australian Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-0 on day three of the tennis tournament.
Shortly afterwards on Centre Court Wimbledon champion Venus was not quite as ruthless but still had far too much for Czech Iveta Benesova, winning 6-1 6-4.
”It was clean,” fourth seed Serena, who next faces France’s Alize Cornet, told reporters. ”I played really clean matches in the past and the next one would be kind of streaky. I don’t want to do that any more.”
Serena and Venus, winners of 15 Grand Slam singles titles between them, are on opposite sides of the draw and with seeds tumbling they look destined to meet in the final.
After Russian third seed Svetlana Kuznetsova’s defeat by China’s Li Na on Monday, two more women’s seeds fell.
Slovak Daniela Hantuchova, seeded 10, fell to Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki 6-1 6-3 while Pole Agnieszka Radwanska, the eighth seed, lost a tense battle against Italian Francesca Schiavone 6-3 7-6.
China now have just two players left in the women’s singles after Peng Shuai’s 6-2 6-2 defeat by 15th seed Cornet. Li and Zheng Jie play later.
American doubles duo Bob and Mike Bryan launched their Olympic bid with a 6-2 6-1 defeat of the Bahamian team of Mark Knowles and Devin Mullings.
Later at the Olympic Tennis Centre the men’s singles favourites are all in second-round action.
Spain’s Rafael Nadal takes on Lleyton Hewitt in the day’s highlight and top seed Roger Federer is up against El Salvador’s Rafael Arevalo, ranked 447th in the world. — Reuters