Victorious Venus Sets Up Charleston Clash With Bouchard

On Wednesday, both Venus Williams and Jelena Jankovic advanced at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, S.C., Venus with a 7-5, 7-5 win over Chanelle Scheepers, while Jankovic was a 6-0, 6-3 winner over American Lauren Davis.

"She was playing so well, but the good thing is that when I get behind, I give even more effort and get even more focused," Venus said of Scheepers. "I've been playing well from behind lately, which is something you have to be able to do to win big matches, because you're not always going to be ahead out there."

Up next for Venus is the number six seeded Eugenie Bouchard, a 6-2, 6-0 winner over Alla Kudryavtseva. Venus defeated Bouchard 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the 2013 Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo in the pair’s only prior meeting.

"Yeah, it'll be a rematch," Bouchard said. "I played her in Tokyo last year, and we had a really tough three set battle. So I'm just looking forward to having another good match. I think she can still play really, really well, and serve really well, so I have to be ready for that when I'm playing her. I respect her, of course, but I'm going to believe in myself and believe I can win."

American Sloane Stephens was knocked out by Elina Svitolina, 6-4, 6-4. Svitolina, fresh off becoming the world’s number one ranked teenager, made Stephens her latest Top 20 conquest, having defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova at the Australian Open, Roberta Vinci in Paris and Eugenie Bouchard at Indian Wells.

Next up for Jankovic is Ajla Tomljanovic, a 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-3 winner over the 16th-seeded Zhang Shuai. Jankovic and Tomljanovic will be playing against each other for the first time.

Also advancing on Wednesday was the 14th-seeded Andrea Petkovic, a straight sets winner over Lourdes Domínguez Lino; the number four seed, Sabine Lisicki, who rallied from 2-0 down in the third to beat American Vania King, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3; the number three seed, Sara Errani, was a winner after Dutch qualifier Kiki Bertens was forced to retire with a lower back injury.