World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki has joined agitated No.3 seed Victoria Azarenka and No.8 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in winning in straight sets to advance to the fourth round of the Australian Open on Friday.
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.
The other third-round matches to be played on Friday pit Belgian No.10 seed and defending champion Kim Clijsters against 20th-seeded Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova, with the winner to meet either Chinese fifth seed Li Na or Spanish 26th seed Anabel Medina Garrigues.
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 from Barthel handed her the win, giving the line judge a spray before advancing to the net.
A quarter-finalist at Melbourne Park two years ago, Azarenka will now be confident of reaching that stage again as she will take on Benesova on Sunday, having won their only three meetings in straight sets.
Benesova was the first player in either draw through to the fourth round, having cruised to a 6-1 6-3 victory in 70 minutes against Russian Nina Bratchikova at Show Court 2.
Radwanska capitalised on 34 unforced errors from her Kazakhstani opponent Galina Voskoboeva to carve out a 6-2 6-2 win, and she'll now play Goerges.
Goerges started slowly against 10th seed Francesca Schiavone's second-round conqueror Romina Oprandi at Show Court 3 but warmed to her task as the match wore on as she raced to a 3-6 6-3 6-1 win.