Defending champion Kim Clijsters will meet China's Li Na in a repeat of last year Australian Open final after the duo won through their respective third round matches in contrasting fashion on Friday.
Clijsters booked her spot in the fourth round with a comfortable straight sets victory over Daniela Hantuchova on Hisense Arena, while Li progressed when Spanish opponent Anabel Medina Garrigues retired in the first set of their match.
Clijsters had far too much power for her opponent and was never seriously threatened in the 6-3 6-2 victory that took just 75 minutes.
Hantuchova actually beat Clijsters in Brisbane earlier this month, but that result never looked likely as the No.11 seed broke her opponents serve early to set-up a 4-2 advantage in the first set.
Clijsters lost her serve in the following game, but then rattled off back-to-back games with some strong ground strokes to clinch the first set in 43 minutes.
A pair of forehand winners in the opening game allowed Clijsters an early break in the second and from there it was all one way traffic as Hantuchova failed to cope with her opponents excellent accuracy from the back of the court.
Li and Medina Garrigues had to wait longer than expected just to get on Rod Laver Arena as the men's match scheduled before them between Australian Bernard Tomic and Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov went on for close to four hours.
The duo were on court for a little over 10 minutes with Li leading 2-0, when Medina Garrigues rolled her ankle when attempting to quickly change direction.
It was a bitter blow for Medina Garrigues and, although she attempted to battle on, she finally pulled the pin when trailing 0-3 and 0-30.
Earlier in the day, World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki joined agitated No.3 seed Victoria Azarenka and No.8 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in advancing.
Serbian No.13 seed Jelena Jankovic also advanced comfortably but German No.22 seed Julia Goerges had to do it tougher, coming from behind to book her place in the last 16 along with unseeded Czech Iveta Benesova.
A semi-finalist at Melbourne Park 12 months ago, where she fell to Li, Wozniacki's trouble-free start to this year's tournament continued when she brushed aside 31st-seeded Romanian Monica Niculescu 6-2 6-2 at Hisense Arena.
Wozniacki broke early for a 2-0 lead and while Niculescu did hit back immediately, she had no such answers after dropping serve again in the fourth and eighth games to surrender the set, before Wozniacki raced to a 5-1 lead in the second set.
The Danish top seed would give up her serve again as she tried to close out the match but within moments it was all over anyway as Wozniacki completed a sixth break from seven chances to set up a clash with Jankovic, who easily ousted American Christina McHale 6-2 6-0.
Earlier, Azarenka continued on her merry way following successive 6-1 6-0 wins over Briton Heather Watson and local Casey Dellacqua respectively with a 6-2 6-4 victory against German Mona Barthel.
But the 22-year-old did have some trouble closing out the match when a shot down the line from Barthel on Azarenka's fourth match point appeared to land just wide, the problem being she had no challenges remaining.
Azarenka lost her temper, throwing her hand out in anticipation of an out call that never came, and she was still steaming moments later when an error