Beijing: Venus Williams's hopes of a second Olympic singles gold remained on track on Wednesday after she moved effortlessly into the quarter-finals.
The American, who won singles and doubles gold in the 2000 Games in Sydney, coasted past 12th seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-3, 6-2.
Seventh seed Venus will now play home favourite Li Na, who beat Estonia's Kaia Kanepi 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 to become the first Chinese player to reach the last eight of an Olympic tennis tournament.
"I love the atmosphere," said Venus. "I think the most important part (about the Olympics) is it's only every four years, so now is the time to really play well.
"I think I'm coming closer. Quarter-finals now, so it's coming closer every round. It's my dream."
Venus said it was memories of the latest of her five Wimbledon triumphs this year rather than her gold medal-winning performance in Sydney eight years ago that were driving her on.
"I'll always have the gold in Sydney, so that's obviously a precious memory," she said.
"But definitely closer is Wimbledon. That's definitely what's in my mind at this moment, just my performance there and what it took to win there, really trying to apply that here. So I definitely take that on the court with me."
In other matches, Austrian Sybille Bammer set up a quarter-final clash with Russian ninth seed Vera Zvonareva after seeing off Czech Lucie Safarova 7-5, 6-4.
Zvonareva battled past Italy's Francesca Schiavone 7/6 (7/4), 6-4. Another Russian through to the last eight was in-form Dinara Safina, the sixth seed outmuscling China's number one Zheng Jie 6-4, 6-3.
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