Tennis: Ivanovic destroyed by rampant Clijsters

Clijsters won the title at Flushing Meadows in 2005 and came out of retirement last year to lift the trophy again in only her 14th match and third tournament since returning to action.

And the second seed again demonstrated her liking for New York by brushing aside former world No 1 Ivanovic 6-2 6-1 in just 59 minutes to advance to a quarter-final clash with either fifth seed Samantha Stosur or 12th seed Elena Dementieva.

"At the beginning you have to settle down with the wind and adjust, especially with the serve, and then I felt I started moving forward better and dictating the points better and was defending pretty good as well," said Clijsters, who has dropped just 14 games in four matches.

"I've always played really good matches in America, I enjoy playing on hard courts and you automatically do well in places where you feel good and have done well before, so the US Open is a special tournament for me."

Ivanovic became world No 1 when she won the French Open in 2008, but is currently ranked 40th after a number of injury problems and a loss of form.

The 22-year-old was forced to retire from her last match with Clijsters, in the semi-finals in Cincinnati recently, with a foot injury, and was not too downhearted despite today's display.

"Besides this match today, I think I played really well," Ivanovic said.

The trend for one-sided matches, particularly in the bottom half of the draw, continued with Francesca Schiavone beating Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets.

French Open champion Schiavone, the sixth seed, won 6-3 6-0