Serena Williams defeats sister Venus to advance to Wimbledon quarterfinals

Serena Williams beat her sister, Venus, in a Round of 16 match at Wimbledon on Monday.

That was it. Good, hard tennis. No soap operas. Very little emotion. Just more and better forehands and backhands and serves from the younger Williams than her older sister.

The score was 6-4, 6-3. Two powerful hitters banging away, with the current No. 1 player in the world getting the best of it.

Much was at stake, of course.

Serena has won the last three majors in tennis, the U.S. Open, Australian and French. If she wins here, it is four in a row, a Serena Slam, and if she can continue on to a victory in the U.S. Open, she will have a coveted Calendar Year Grand Slam, very rare in the sport.

To close out the match, Serena broke Venus’ serve at love at 3-5 of the second set. Venus had double faulted to take it to love-40 and Serena wasted no time ending things.

There was an affectionate sisterly hug at the net, and then the 16^th-seeded Venus, who has won five titles here, the same as Serena, met the media and told reporters that, “When Serena and I were kids, we didn’t think about our limits. We just dreamed.”

This was their 26th meeting. Serena now leads that head-to-head matchup, 15-11.

In their most recent meeting prior to Monday, Venus won in a semifinal in Montreal last year. She is 35 but said she expects to be back at Wimbledon next year.

Williams will face two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka in Tuesday’s marquee quarterfinals matchup. Azarenka defeated Belinda Bencic, 6-2, 6-3. Williams is 16-3 against Azarenka overall, and 9-0 in Grand Slam matches.

In other fourth-round matches, American CoCo Vandeweghe upset French Open runner-up Lucie Safarova, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (4) to advance. Her next opponent will be Maria Sharapova, who defeated Zarina Diyas, 6-4, 6-4.

Madison Keys was the first American to advance to the quarterfinals Monday after beating Olga Govortsova, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1. Garbine Muguruza advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time after the 20th-seeded Spaniard upset No. 5 Caroline Wozniacki, 6-4, 6-4.

On the men’s side, Richard Gasquet made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon for the first time since 2007 with a 7-5, 6-1, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (6) victory over Nick Kyrgios. Canadian Vasek Pospisil came back from two sets down to beat Viktor Troicki, 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.