Once again, we tip our Wimbledon hats to the amazing Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, who sail on majestically at these 130th Championships and who are on the quarter-final bill together 16 years after they first achieved the feat.

Serena was just 18 when she blasted her way past compatriot Lisa Raymond into the semi-finals, where Venus ensured the adventures of her little sis would end in the last four.

Yet though they looked like the future, it would have seemed unimaginable back then that, at 36 and 34 respectively, they would still be key players on last-eight day, winners of 11 Wimbledon singles titles between them and still competing with what Serena calls “the passion and intensity” that made them.

The difference? Venus says Serena wears that passion on her sleeve while her passion may lurk unseen but, either way, their respective Russian-born opponents, Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, will quickly be acquainted with exceptional forces of will.

Venus has never before met the 28-year-old Shvedova, who has a mediocre record - only two previous quarter-final appearances in 32 Grand Slams - but, as last year’s French Open finalist Lucie Safarova discovered while being soundly beaten on Monday, the No.96 ranking does no justice to what a dangerous, aggressive shotmaker the woman from Astana can be on her day.

And it was her day four years ago here when Shvedova won the first 24 points and lost none against Sara Errani, the only example of a ‘golden set’ in Wimbledon annals. Venus will wary of such streaky brilliance on No.1 Court.

Pavlyuchenkova could have been forgiven for watching Serena’s demolition job on her Russian compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova, who eked out a mere five points in the second set on Monday, with a resigned sigh of recognition. In five matches against the world No.1, she has won only one set.

The Moscow-based Pavlyuchenkova, who celebrated her 25th birthday on Middle Sunday, is a one-time junior phenomenon who has never quite fulfilled great expectations despite picking up eight WTA titles.

Yet, having belatedly discovered that grass suits her aggressive, power game, she may not be easily subdued on Centre Court, even by a champion who is, by the day, looking more terrifying out there.

Match of the day is on Centre Court with Simona Halep, the woman that all Romania believes must one day land the Grand Slam that her talent and spirit merits, tries to subdue Angelique Kerber, again beginning to resemble the player who broke her duck in the majors in Melbourne.

Kerber has had an uneven season since her Australian breakthrough but there have been moments when she has looked searingly good, like the afternoon in April when she silenced Halep’s reverential home support in Cluj-Napoca in the Romania-Germany Fed Cup tie with a 6-2, 6-2 hammering.