United Arab Emirates (AP):

Serena and Venus Williams remained on track to meet in the semi-finals, but Jelena Jankovic was ousted in the third round of the Dubai Championships yesterday.

Top-seeded Serena beat Zheng Jie of China 6-4, 6-2, while sixth-seeded Venus put away Alize Cornet of France 6-3, 6-2.

Third-seeded Jankovic, the runner-up in 2005 and a semi-finalist the last two years, lost her first match with Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-2, 7-5. It was Kanepi first win over a top-five player.

After Serena Williams broke Zheng in the 10th game, her third straight win over the Chinese was predictable.

Aggressive start

"I think the intensity was high today, but my first serve could have been better," Williams said. "I had to rely a lot on my second serve. I definitely could do better technically."

Venus Williams started aggressively against Cornet then began to dominate when she reined herself in and began to make less errors.

"I made more errors than yesterday," Williams said. "I rushed a little bit in the first set and then realised it in the second and started pulling back a little bit on my shots."

In the quarter-finals, Serena Williams will meet French Open champion Ana Ivanovic, while Venus will play defending champion Elena Dementieva.

First battle

Win those matches and the sisters will play each other for the first time since the WTA Championships in November, when Venus won en route to the title. Neither sister has won the Dubai title.

Eighth-seeded Ivanovic beat lucky loser Camille Pin of France 6-2, 7-6 (5), while fourth-seeded Dementieva dispatched Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain 6-1, 6-3.

In the other quarter-finals, fifth-seeded Vera Zvonareva will play Virginie Razzano of France and Kanepi will meet qualifier Elena Vesnina of Russia, guaranteeing one unseeded player into the semi-finals.