French Open 2016: Serena Williams beats Elina Svitolina to reach quarter-finals

Serena Williams has reached the quarter-finals of the French Open having defeated Elina Svitolina 6-1, 6-1.

The top-seeded Williams dominated from start to finish in a match lasting only 62 minutes Wednesday.

The match originally was scheduled for Monday, but showers forced cancellation of an entire day of play at Roland Garros for the first time in 16 years. Then, on Tuesday, more rain allowed for a total of only 2 hours of play around the grounds, and Williams’ match was postponed again.

Williams, the defending French Open champion, is trying to match Steffi Graf’s Open-era mark of 22 major titles.

Meanwhile, older sister Venus Williams failed in her bid to reach the French Open quarterfinals for the first time in a decade, losing to eighth-seeded Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round Wednesday.

The ninth-seeded Venus Williams, a 7-time major champion, started well enough, taking a 2-0 lead, before dropping 8 games in a row. She was the runner-up to her sister Serena at Roland Garros in 2002, but her most recent trip to the quarterfinals in Paris came in 2006.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press