Justine Henin at Wimbledon

The preliminaries are out of the way. At Wimbledon, the heavy lifting in the women’s draw begins in Monday’s round of sixteen.

The toughest bracket in the Wimbledon draw is now ready for Monday’s Round of Sixteen. In number four seed Jalena Jankovic’s bracket, the top seed will face number 21 seed, Russian Vera Zvonareva, who surprised Belgium’s other superstar Yanina Wickmayer in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.

Serbia’s fourth seed Jankovic who has made a steady climb up the rankings advanced with a decisive 74 minute 6-0, 6-3 win over Alona Bondarenko. Despite Clijsters 8th seeding and Henin’s 17th seeding, few think Jankovic or Zvonareva can stay with either of Belgium’s two comeback kids who will be meeting for the 25th time on tour.

Henin eliminated hard-hitting Nadia Petrova with relative ease in a straight set 6-1, 6-4 win. The victory extended the feisty Belgian’s straight set winning streak over Petrova to six matches. Her all-time record against the Russian now stands at 14-2. Amazingly, her all-time record against Russian opponents is 101-12.

Clijsters was equally dominant against 27 seed Russian beauty Maria Kirilenko in registering a solid 6-3, 6-3 triumph. Clijsters took control of the pace of the match and used her reliable serve to thwart the blonde beauty.

In their highly publicized heavyweight matches, Henin and Clijsters have each won 12 times in the longstanding rivalry. On grass, Henin enjoys a slight 3-1 advantage. If Clijsters is to succeed against Henin, she will have to take advantage of Henin’s unimpressive second serve, which seems suspect at times.

In other matches, Venus Williams moved on with a convincing 6-4, 6-2 win over a very game Alisa Kleybanova. Alisa captured an early break and was up 3-1 in the first set before Williams mounted her charge. Kleybanova seemed to lose her confidence once Williams gained the advantage and before she knew what hit, Alisa was down 5-1 in the second set. The irrepressible Williams is 14-0 against Russians at Wimbledon.

Australian Jarmila Groth will be the next notch in Venus’ run. Groth defeated Angelique Kerber 6-3, 7-5 on Isner-Mahut Court 18. This is the second major in a row that Groth has reached the round of sixteen.

Frenchwoman Marian Bartoli continued her impressive march through the field. The 11th seed ended qualifier Greta Arn’s courageous run with a 6-3, 6-4 win. Tsvetana Pironkova advanced when Regina Kulikova was forced to retire at 6-4, 2-0. The Venus Williams bracket appears to be the weakest in the field.

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