Serena avenges Venus loss to reach quarter-finals

Toronto: Top seed Serena Williams avenged her older sister`s defeat by Kirsten Flipkens with a 6-0 6-3 pounding of the Belgian to move into the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup on Thursday.

Flipkens put down Venus Williams in three sets in the first round as Serena watched from the stands, but the 13th seed struggled for rhythm in the face of the 31-year-old`s monster serve and fierce returning. "I definitely thought about Venus, and I thought what a good comeback Kirsten had, so I thought, `I`m not going to get overconfident. She`s obviously a really good player, so I was just trying to stay focused as well as intense," Williams, who next faces Slovakia`s Magdalena Rybarikova, told reporters. Suprise Wimbledon champion and seventh seed Marion Bartoli suffered a blow before the U.S. Open, retiring when trailing 7-6 1-0 to Rybarikova. Bartoli said she felt pain while serving and hitting backhands and thought she had suffered an abdominal injury to her right side. "It took me so much energy to win my first grand slam that at some point I will have a kind of low, and it`s normal," she said. Reuters