INQUIRER Sports

ROME -- Seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova dumped reigning champion Jelena Jankovic out of the WTA Rome claycourt international 6-1, 7-6 (7/3) with a powerful performance in Thursday's quarter-finals.

In so doing, the Russian 23-year-old gained revenge on Jankovic, who beat her in the 2007 final here, the first of two successive titles in Rome for the Serbian world number four.

Kuznetsova, ranked eighth in the world, proved too good for the third seed, pinging winners off both wings throughout the match as Jankovic struggled to deal with her opponent's power.

The Serbian was gracious in defeat, paying tribute to her opponent.

"She was playing very good tennis out there. She was hitting the ball very, very well with a lot of power and depth," admitted Jankovic.

"She didn't allow me to play my game and especially that was the case in the first set.

"Then I started to see a little bit change the way I was playing and my tactics a little bit in the second set but it was a little bit too late.

"I had some chances, I had two set points in the second and didn't take them and then everything went her way.

"But from the beginning I didn't play tactically well. I played what she liked, and, of course, she has more power than me.

"Today was her day, she was the better player, she deserved to win."

The Russian fired over 27 winners to just 12 from Jankovic, more than making up for her 25 unforced errors, only six more than her opponent produced.

The first set was one-way traffic as Jankovic failed to get a foothold in a match that looked to be running away from her.

But in the second she knuckled down and stayed in contention, although she still went down a break.

The Serbian's battling qualities came to the fore as she hung in there and broke back to love when Kuznetsova was serving for the match at 5-4.

And Jankovic even had two set points at 6-5 and 15-40 on Kuznetsova's serve but she could take neither and the Russian went on to stroll through the tie-break before sealing the victory with another typical backhand winner down the line.

She next plays either sixth seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus or Estonian 16th seed Kaia Kanepi.