INQUIRER Sports

ROME -- Reigning champion Jelena Jankovic barely had to break sweat on Wednesday as she coasted into the WTA Rome claycourt International quarter-finals when Kateryna Bondarenko retired with an illness.

Their third round match had been uncompetitive before the Ukrainian's retirement with third seed Jankovic charging to a 6-1, 1-0 lead before the end came.

It was a far cry from the Serbian's clash against Argentine clay specialist Gisela Dilko the previous day which lasted almost two hours.

World No. 4 Jankovic will play either seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova or home hope and 12th seed Flavia Pennetta in the last eight.

Jankovic said she didn't want the match to finish that way but was looking forward to hitting the shops on her afternoon off.

"I would have loved to finish the match because I was playing pretty well in that first set," she said.

"I felt the ball really well and I had good timing so it was a good set, a good game for me.

"But, unfortunately my opponent was sick and there's nothing you can do about that.

"Maybe now I will do a little bit of shopping and that's it. I had an easy day today, unlike yesterday where I spent most of the day here.

"Already my mom has been going shopping. I kind of write a list of buy me this, buy me that so I don't know.

"I will go today for a little bit, not too much because I must save my energy for my match tomorrow."

In another early match sixth seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus thrashed ninth seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki 6-2, 6-2.