Serena Williams overpowered Russian 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach the last eight at Wimbledon, keeping her bid to equal Steffi Graf's professional-era record of grand slam titles on track.
Russian Kuznetsova, herself a double grand slam winner and three-times Wimbledon quarter-finalist, beat Williams on a hardcourt at the Miami Open in March.
But on a slippery Centre Court the six-times Wimbledon champion was too hot to handle, and she booked her place in the next round in one hour 16 minutes, reeling off the last eight games in a 7-5 6-0 win.
The world number one next faces another Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Williams began the match as if late for an Independence Day appointment, serving a succession of aces and then hitting a brace of groundstroke winners, one off each wing, to break her opponent in the fourth game.
Kuznetsova fought her way back, varying her pace by mixing in slices and drop shots on a surface on which both players at times struggled to keep their footing.
She broke in the fifth game on her fifth break point, and again to lead 5-4 when a backhand crosscourt winner left the American sprawled on the turf.
But the Russian failed to serve out the set and, with drizzle threatening, both players complaining about the slippery conditions and even a ballboy losing his footing, the match was suspended at 5-5 for the roof to be closed.
When play resumed, Williams won the next two games, taking the set when Kuznetsova netted a backhand service return drilled right at her feet - and taking the second set without conceding another game.
The grande dame of women's tennis, Venus Williams, strode to victory against a scampering Carla Suarez Navarro, beating the Spaniard 7-6(3) 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals.
Williams, with five Wimbledon crowns to her name, used her 20 years of experience on the tour to overcome early sluggishness, a rain break and a busy opponent.
Williams, the oldest woman in the draw at 36, looked out-of-of-sorts when she arrived on Court One and lost the first three games of the contest.
She pulled back to a tiebreak but had to run off court for half an hour because of a rain shower - a feature of this year's tournament.
"I thought: Oh no not again," eighth seed Williams said. "It was hard... I was dismayed.
"I just tried to stay focused and she gave me a few points and that saw me through."
Williams's nine inch (23 cm) height advantage was also a bonus for the American and she used her big serve, stride and reach to counter Suarez Navarro's speed and whipping top-spin groundstrokes.
The 12th-seeded Spaniard had to go for her shots and they did not come off too often. She put a forehand long to hand Williams the first set.
Williams broke serve twice in the second set and, though she returned the favour herself in the sixth game, Suarez Navarro failed to withstand Williams's serving and big shot barrage in the final game, succumbing to an unreturnable backhand.
Romanian fifth seed Simona Halep recovered to beat an emotional and hobbling Madison Keys 6-7(5) 6-4 6-3 and reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the second time in her career on Monday.
The 24-year-old was heading out when she fell a break behind in the second set, having squandered four set points to surrender the opener, but she battled back and then took ruthless advantage as Keys appeared to suffer a leg injury.
She will play Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber in the last eight.
The first eight games were full of high-quality clean hitting, before a strange sequence of games saw both players go off the boil in equal measure.
Halep broke when she lunged to reach a poor Keys volley and scooped the ball inadvertently over the 21-year-old American's head.
But she let her opponent off the hook, double-faulting on two of the four set points that came her way when she served at 5-4 in the opening set. Keys also saved one with a sizzling backhand return of serve.
Immediately Halep broke the powerful Keys serve to love, but once again faltered at 6-5 as the American flashed a forehand winner, one of 16 in the match, to take the opener into a tiebreak.
Ninth seed Keys, the youngest player to reach the fourth round this year, surged ahead in the breaker and claimed it 7-5 with another crunching forehand winner into an open court.
When Halep double-faulted and then sent a backhand long to drop serve at the start of the second set and Keys held with a huge ace to lead 2-0 the end looked nigh.
But Halep, whose semi-final appearance two years ago disguises an ordinary Wimbledon record, is made of sterner stuff and worked her way back, breaking back in the fourth game as the errors returned to the Keys game.
Keys netted a forehand to hand the second set to a resurgent Halep and the decider became an ordeal for the American as she looked in discomfort and close to tears with a leg injury.
Surprisingly Keys, playing some shots off one leg, did not call for the trainer and Halep calmly moved 5-3 ahead, sealing victory when Keys belted a forehand out.
Superior court craft proved decisive for Kerber as she motored past Japanese pocket rocket Misaki Doi 6-3 6-1 in a full-blooded fourth-round match on Court Two.
German fourth seed Kerber, who reached the semi-finals at the All England Club in 2012, risked being overpowered early in the first set as her 5-foot-3 (1.59 metre) opponent bludgeoned forehand winners to both sides of the court.
But Kerber, who shocked world number one Serena Williams to win her maiden grand slam title in Melbourne in January, gradually found her range on her groundstrokes while 49th-ranked Doi's radar began to slip.
In a match full of mesmerising rallies, Kerber broke twice in the first set, winning it on her third set point, before cruising through the second as Doi's challenge fizzled out.
Pavlyuchenkova set up a quarter-final against Serena Williams by putting an end to Coco Vandeweghe's tournament.
The Moscow resident was just 15 when she played in the Wimbledon main draw for the first time in 2007, and this is her 10th tilt at the tournament.
A day after her 25th birthday, she earned a maiden last-eight appearance thanks to a 6-3 6-3 win on Court 18.
Ranked 23rd in the world, and seeded 21st, Pavlyuchenkova has a career littered with early grand slam exits, and just two prior quarter-final showings, at the French Open and US Open, both coming in 2011.
But she dismantled Vandeweghe's misfiring game on Court 18, a day after the heavy-hitting American had shone on Centre when knocking out Italian sixth seed Roberta Vinci. Vandeweghe could not get her serve working, landing just 49 per cent of first deliveries in court.
"Losing is never fun," Vandeweghe said. "A lot of things weren't working. Missing easy first balls. I'm assuming I had a very low percentage of first serves. I haven't looked at the stats.
"The fact I was getting pushed around out there, that's me not doing my job."
Pavlyuchenkova would have to wait a few hours to learn who she would face in the last eight. Defending title holder Williams was set for a mid-afternoon clash with Svetlana Kuznetsova, in another American-Russian clash on the fourth of July.
Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova bundled third seed Agnieszka Radwanska out of the fourth round of, saving match point on the way, less than two weeks after beating her in the Eastbourne warm-up tournament.
In an energy-sapping contest between power and touch, Cibulkova used a thunderous serve and thumping forehand to wear down Radwanska 6-3 5-7 9-7.
Cibulkova broke the Pole, whose all-court game lacked energy and precision at the start, in the fourth game of a lacklustre first set and took the set with a big serve that Radwanska knocked tamely into the net.
The pair exchanged breaks throughout the second set and Radwanska saved a match point in the ninth game, finding some verve and precision to grab the set from the disappointed Slovak.
The two women ramped up the quality in the final set, hitting the lines, producing deft drop-shots and fighting through exhausting groundstroke rallies to the delight of the gripped Court Three crowd.
It was the 13th contest between the pair, both 27, and by now they were shrieking with effort as they ran the lines.
Cibulkova, ranked 18 in the world, survived a monumental 11th game in the set, saving match point with a forehand winner.
It was another thumping forehand that brought her victory on the second match point of the final game for her sixth win against the Pole, a finalist here in 2012.
The Slovak will meet either Ekaterina Makarova or Elena Vesnina, both of Russia, in Tuesday's quarter-finals.
Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazahkstan swept past Lucie Safarova and into her first Wimbledon quarter-final, beating the Russian 28th seed 6-2 6-4.
Ranked 96th but holding a 3-0 head-to-head record against her higher-ranked opponent, the big-serving Shvedova - making her 10th appearance at Wimbledon - powered down seven aces and hit the mark with three quarters of her first serves.
Another serve proved decisive on the final point when Safarova hit her return long.
Shvedova next faces Venus Williams.
