Kim Clijsters did her bit ahead of an eagerly anticipated fourth-round Wimbledon clash with fellow Belgian Justine Henin by crushing Russian Maria Kirilenko 6-3 6-3 in her third-round match.
Clijsters, twice a semi-finalist here, blitzed her way to the opener in 27 minutes on a sunbaked Court Two at the All England Club.
Kirilenko, the world number 28, recovered an early break to draw level at 3-3 in the second but eighth seed Clijsters forged ahead again, breaking twice more and sealed victory after 62 minutes when the Russian double faulted.
Justine Henin ensured that the meeting with Clijsters would happen when she saw off Nadia Petrova in straight sets.
It was as if the 17th seed had never been away as she broke Petrova, who famously beat Clijsters for the loss of only one game at the Australian Open this year, at the very start of the match.
The rest of the first set went much the same way, with Henin breaking her powerful opponent twice more in the fifth and seventh games.
Petrova was not prepared to lie down, though, and she upped her game at the start of the second set to break Henin and lead 2-1.
But the 28-year-old Belgian always looked threatening, particularly when she was given a chance to use her trademark backhand, and she duly levelled by taking the sixth game.
Henin then piled the pressure on Petrova by firing down two aces to hold for a 5-4 lead and the Russian could not handle it, sending a backhand long to give the former world number one victory.
Serbian fourth seed Jelena Jankovic ended the Wimbledon ambitions of Alona Bondarenko with a ruthless demolition on Court Two.
Jankovic was taken to three sets by Aleksandra Wozniak in the second round but she was on top throughout against Bondarenko, who hails from Ukraine.
The former mixed doubles champion won 6-0 6-3 to secure a place in the fourth round, a stage she has never gone past in six previous visits to Wimbledon, despite reaching semi-finals of the other three grand slams.
Five-times champion Venus Williams dodged a potential banana skin with relative ease on Friday when she dispatched Russian 26th seed Alisa Kleybanova 6-4 6-2 in the third round.
The 30-year-old American fell to an early break against the imposing Kleybanova, but broke back quickly and started to find her range both with serve and on her groundstrokes.
She peppered seven aces, one bomb clocked at 128mph, to put the Russian on the back foot and despite stretching the second set to almost an hour the Russian could not pierce the armoury of Williams, who prevailed in an hour and 37 minutes.
Venus will face Germany's Angelique Kerber or Australia's Jarmila Groth for a place in the quarter-finals.
