By Chris Oddo | Wednesday September 30, 2015

 

Venus Williams keeps rolling in China. She reached the quarterfinals with a straight-sets victory over Carla Suarez Navarro.

Photo Source: Zhong Zhi/Getty

Venus Williams followed up on her milestone 700th win with another sterling performance on Wednesday in Wuhan, defeating Carla Suarez Navarro, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals.

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After an early hiccup that saw her broken in her first service game, Williams found her form. She broke back immediately for 1-all then struck a forehand winner to break Suarez Navarro in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead.

Williams closed out the set moments later, hammering a serve down the T that the Spaniard could only net.

With a snap in her step and plenty of her trademark pop on the ball, Williams drew first blood in set two, walloping an inside-out forehand winner on her third break point of the game for a 2-1 lead.

The 35-year-old American made the break stand up, though not without trouble. She fought off three break points at 3-2, finally wiggling out of the precarious situation with another big serve.

She did not face another break point the rest of the way, and finished the one hour and 29-minute with 28 winners against 20 unforced errors.

It was her third victory in six career matches against Suarez Navarro, and Williams’ sixth Top-10 victory of the year.

The 24th-ranked American will face either top-seeded Simona Halep or Johanna Konta in the quarterfinals.

Suarez Navarro drops to 37-21 with the loss and fails to pick up much-needed points in the Road to Singapore standings. She will likely drop out of the Top-8 as a result (she entered the week at No. 8 in the race, but held a small margin over No. 9 through 11).