Daria Gavrilova has continued her fine clay court form at the Italian Open with a three-set win over former French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova to power into the quarter-finals.

The 23-year-old Australian, who had to qualify for this tournament after missing the cut-off date to register her entry for the main draw, prevailed over the world No.8 2-6 7-5 6-4.

World No 33 Gavrilova has beaten American Madison Keys, runner-up last year, and Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia this week on her way to booking her spot in the last eight.

In the next round Gavrilova will play the winner of the match between Ekaterina Makarova and Kiki Bertens.

Venus Williams powered into the quarter-finals with a dominant 6-1 3-6 6-1 victory over fifth seed Johanna Konta.

Williams, who had lost her last three encounters with the British No.1 showed no signs of nerves as she dictated play from the baseline and broke Konta twice in the first set.

Konta recovered to take the second set and level the match but Williams, who won the Rome title in 1999, came back spectacularly with a decisive double break in the third set.

The American will meet either defending champion Garbine Muguruza or Germany’s Julia Georges in the quarter-finals.

Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit, who defeated world No.1 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 6-0 in the other third-round clash.

The Romanian will face Kontaveit in the quarter-finals.