Venus against Safina soon

STUTTGART, GERMANY.

Wimbledon champion Venus Williams will take on world number three Dinara Safina in the quarter-finals of Stuttgart's WTA event after her comfortable second-round win on Thursday.

The American needed a little over an hour and hit a staggering 12 aces as she over-powered Ukraine's Kateryna Bondarenko 6-4, 6-2 to set up Friday's last-eight clash with French Open runner-up, and Olympic silver medallist, Safina.

The first set was fairly close as Williams had her service broken and had to break back before sealing the opener 6-4, but the second was one-way traffic as Williams blasted eight aces, while Bondarenko replied with four double faults.

"The first set was tough, she broke me, so I had to break back and work hard," admitted Williams.