Former world number one Venus Williams powered into the Italian open quarter-finals.

This with a dominant 6-1, 3-6, 6-1 victory over fifth seed Johanna Konta.

Williams, who had who won the Rome title in 1999, will meet either defending champion Garbine Muguruza or Germany’s Julia Georges in the quarter-finals.

Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit, who defeated world number one Angelique Kerber on Wednesday, continued to build momentum with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over 16th-seed Croatian Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.

Sixth-seed Simona Halep marched past Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1 4-6 6-love in the other third-round clash. The Romanian will face Kontaveit in the quarter-finals.

Unseeded Daria Gavrilova stunned Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova to reach the final eight of the competition with a 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory.