Serena marches into French Open quarter-finals

Paris, June 1 (IANS) Defending champion Serena Williams fired out a warning shot to her French Open competitors, swatting aside Elina Svitolina in straight sets 6-1, 6-1 here on Wednesday.

The players had originally been due on court on Monday afternoon, only for the Paris weather to intervene.

When they did finally make it onto the Philippe Chatrier court, Serena was clearly intent on making up for lost time, reeling off the first four games in the blink of an eye against the hapless Ukrainian.

Svitolina did eventually get on the scoreboard but was unable to stem the tide for long, dropping the first set in under half an hour.

The second set was almost as brief, the American wrapped up victory to book a quarter-final meeting with Yulia Putintseva or Carla Suarez Navarro.

--IANS

sam/dg