Intro:

Venus Williams reached the quarter-finals of the Italian Open on Thursday, by knocking out the US Open champion and world number five Samantha Stosur.

Williams' 6-4, 6-3 victory sets up a showdown number two seed Maria Sharapova, after the Russian saved six set points in her opener against 13th seed Ana Ivanovic before coming through 7-6(4), 6-3.

Script:

Venus Williams continued her impressive performance in the Italian Open on Thursday with a third round win against Australia's Samantha Stosur.

She took the first set 6-4.

Before sealing the match with a powerful 6-3 victory in the second.

That puts Venus through to the quarter-finals were she'll be up against Maria Sharapova.

The Russian was up against Ana Ivanovic and trailing 3-0 in the opening set.

But then she got her game together - saving six set points to force a tiebreak and finishing it off seven points to four.

Ivanovic didn't give up and opened up a 3-1 lead in the second set, but Sharapova fought back again to book her place in the last eight.

Taking the match 7-6, 6-3.