Venus goes through

The fourth seed can atone for her fourth round French Open defeat at the hands of Vera Zvonareva when she leads her onto the All England Club's lush lawns on Monday. Judging by her breathtaking performance on Centre Court against Petrova, the 18-year-old had better strap on her armour.

"I just had all the right shots out there... a really good day," Venus smiled afterwards.

Covering the court with huge yet elegant strides, the statuesque Venus dominated the third round match for its entire 62 minutes, her long limbs driving the ball into the corners and onto the lines.

With a silver hair slide keeping her fringe out of her eyes and sporting an elegant bodice dress laced at the back, Venus looked a picture of grace and finesse.

She played like a heavyweight boxer. At one stage even the Centre Court electronic scoreboard could not keep, failing to register the points as quickly as Venus could rack them up.

SWINGING FREELY

Leading 5-1, Venus was swinging freely like a tennis NewYork Yankee. She threw her whole body into a backhand return.The thud when she connected echoed round the old arena and seemed to stun Petrova.

She failed to rouse herself and double-faulted the next point to hand Venus the set 6-1 in 24 minutes. Try as she might, Petrova was unable to jam on the brakes. She tried taking pace off the ball, she tried hitting winners, she even tried passing the net at the opposite side to Venus at changeovers.

But nothing could throw the American, champion here in 2000 and 2001, off her stride. A French Open semi-finalist earlier this month, Petrova could have been forgiven for fancying her chances upsetting the lithe fourth seed coming into the match.

She could not have been more wrong. A wild backhand gave Venus another break and she belted a

112 miles (180.2 km) per hour ace for 3-0 as a hushed Centre Court crowd soaked up the masterclass.

She cracked powerful serves straight back at the Russian and covered every blade of grass on the court as she hit winners from every angle.

The sight of Venus climbing high to power down a serve is an unsettling one, and one which the 27th ranked Russian never became comfortable with.

That the 6ft 1in (1.854 metre) American would win her serve was a foregone conclusion. That Petrova would win hers was an uphill struggle every time.

She did win it for 4-2 with a huge effort. Buoyed, she had one final pop at Venus's delivery but the American stood firm.

Serving to stay in the match, Petrova raced to a 40-15 lead. But a lucky netcord for Venus, a pair of Russian forehand errors and, fittingly, a double fault handed victory to the fourth seed. "Sometimes everything goes your way," she smiled.