Venus Williams claims 700th WTA Tour win

Roberta Vinci advanced to the quarterfinals of the Wuhan Open by beating defending champion Petra Kvitova 7-6 (3), 6-2 on Wednesday.

She added that she grew up watching Venus, the seven-time Grand Slam title-winner, and that the chance to play the American was “a bit of a childhood dream”.

Williams shows few signs of slowing down and she said she now had her sights set on next year’s Rio Olympics, where she will hope to add to her haul of four gold medals.

Two-time major-winner Azarenka stopped play when she was one set and one game down to Brit Konta, saying she picked up a thigh injury in training on Tuesday morning.

Williams outslugged Goerges 6-4, 6-3 to not only reach the third round of the Wuhan Open, but also score her 700th match win, reports Xinhua.

Her first ever professional victory was against Shaun Stafford at Oakland – a match she won 6-3 6-4 in 1994.

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 victor on her third break point of the game for a 2-1 lead. She held nine of her 10 service games during the match. Schmiedlova will next meet Kristina Mladenovic, who beat 14th-seeded Madison Keys of the United States 7-5, 1-6, 6-2.

“I’m feeling humbled and blessed I get to come back (on Thursday) and compete again”, Konta said in her on-court interview televised by BT Sport 1. “First set, I lost”.

Venus, a 7-time Grand Slam champion, turned out to be just the second active player on the women’s tour (after younger sister Serena Williams) and ninth player overall in the Open Era to have pulled off the feat.

“This was my first match after the US Open and it’s always tough to find the rhythm, but mentally I was strong and I’m happy with the win”, he told reporters later.