NO. 21 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine returned to the Wimbledon quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-1 victory Monday over China's Xinyu Wang in just 55 minutes.
A semifinalist at the All England Club in 2023 and 2019, the 29-year-old Svitolina moved a step closer to her first Grand Slam title by committing just 10 unforced errors.
Svitolina struck eight aces among her 21 winners and saved all three break points she faced, while Wang finished with 16 winners and 24 unforced errors.
Svitolina will face No. 4 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the round of eight. Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, was leading 6-3, 3-0 when Russia's Anna Kalinskaya was forced to retire after 53 minutes with an injured right wrist.
Rybakina and Svitolina have split their previous four meetings. Rybakina won their only previous match on grass at Eastbourne in 2021, and also won the most recent meeting at this year's French Open in straight sets.
"(Svitolina is) a tough opponent," Rybakina said. "She reads the game well. She defends pretty good. Some slices here and there. It's not going to be easy, of course. But if I play aggressive, I'm going to serve well, I have all the chances to win of course. I will try to focus on myself and see how it goes."
Rybakina, 25, is the highest-ranked player remaining in the field, and the only prior winner of the grass-court major.
Rybakina improved to 18-2 lifetime at Wimbledon, joining Ann Jones and Steffi Graf as the only women in the open era with a career win rate of 90 percent or better.
"I didn't know about these stats," Rybakina said. "I know I've been winning a lot on grass. It's nice to be next to these names with these statistics. Yeah, I think it's great to be there and really happy to show good tennis on grass."
No. 13 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia rolled to a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan. Ostapenko's 68-minute win put her in the quarterfinals for the third time, the first since 2018.
Ostapenko, 27, has only lost 15 games through her first four matches. With 29 winners against Putintseva, she took her total to 88 in 63 games played.
Ostapenko will face No. 31 seed Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, who swept No. 11 Danielle Collins 7-5, 6-3.
The 28-year-old Krejcikova, a former World No. 1, broke Collins to take a 6-5 lead in the first set and closed out the match by breaking her opponent for the fourth time.
Collins, who is retiring at the end of the season due to health issues, committed 36 unforced errors to 19 for Krejcikova, who finished with 20 winners. — REUTERS