Serena Williams moved into the quarter-finals with a straight-sets victory over her sister Venus but was made to work far harder than the 6-4, 6-3 scoreline suggested.

In the past the Williams sisters have been accused of not going for the jugular against each other. Not on this occasion. The ferocity of the groundstrokes from the very first point showed this was going to be no pillow fight. Winners were sprayed to all parts of the court: there were 37 in total in two sets. The match had a beautiful ferocity to it throughout.

The difference came down not to power, but consistency. For while Venus was able to produce magical shots, which left her sister’s racket flapping in the breeze, she hit flat spots in both sets. Serena rarely hit a stray shot when it mattered. Ultimately she was just too good.

As Serena pointed out afterwards it had a been a real battle. “She was playing really well,” she added. “It was really good to get it done in straight sets.”

There were ominous signs early on for Venus as she was broken to love in the opening game and could only watch as Serena’s powerful serve quickly won another game to love. The cries of “Come on Venus” grew in intensity. And there was an enormous cheer when she won her opening point of the match after losing the first eight.

And Venus was not going to go away quickly. She held her serve and then broke back immediately to make it 2-2. At this point the players were trading winners for fun, but frustratingly for Venus her forehand started to go wandering long and into the tramlines and she was immediately broken again.

She soon found it again, hitting a stunning winner at 3-4 down. Serena’s response? A 116mph serve that nearly took the line judge’s head off.

And it was Serena’s serve that was making the difference time and time again. In the first set she won 75% of her first service points. How many times has Venus faced Serena’s serve since they first started playing? You would think she would know every tic and tell: yet Serena’s serve was at times unplayable and an ace and unreturnable winner and another ace brought her the first set in 33 minutes.

Venus needed to make a fast start to the second set but immediately found herself 15-40 down and saving two breakpoints. She was able to do so. But at 3-3 she faced more breakpoints and a double fault gave Serena a vital break.

Serena had the game in her grasp now and she wasn’t going to let go. Three aces in the eighth game of the match took her to 5-3 and within one game of victory and when Venus’s serve again let her down the match was all over in one hour and eight minutes.

As the players met at the net they hugged each other and left Centre Court to long and lingering cheers. But there was one small regret: this was only the 26th meeting between the sisters in the 17 years they have been together on tour. Given they have probably the two pre-eminent players of their age, there should have been more classic matches between them.

(Guardian service)