Svetlana Kuznetsova's defence of her French Open title ended on Friday after she was dumped out of Roland Garros in round three by Maria Kirilenko.
Sixth seed Kuznetsova was lucky to even be in the third round after Andrea Petkovic squandered a 40-0 lead serving for victory against her on Wednesday.
And she almost repeated the trick when she repelled two match points from her Russian opponent.
But Kirilenko made no mistake with her third to wrap up a 6-3 2-6 6-4 victory on Court One.
Serena Williams admitted she is taking great pleasure from silencing those who claimed she and sister Venus would never again hold the top two spots in the world rankings.
The Williams sisters arrived in Paris as officially the best two players in the world for the first time in seven years.
And so far, both have done just about enough to justify their status, each winning their latest matches on Friday.
Serena gave herself plenty of recovery time for her next match against 29th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova by racing through her postponed second-round clash with Julia Goerges 6-1 6-1 in just 55 minutes on Suzanne Lenglen Court.
Despite winning at a canter, Serena insisted there was plenty she could learn from her match.
"I can learn a lot," she said. "Like, what am I doing today? Why aren't all my matches like this? How can I get them to all be like that?
"Those are the questions that I ask and I try to answer."
Her next test will come on Saturday against Pavlyuchenkova, who beat Jill Craybas 6-4 6-1.
Venus became the first woman through to round four after easing past 26th seed Dominika Cibulkova 6-3 6-4 on Philippe Chatrier Court.
The day began with three second-round matches in progress after Thursday's play was blighted by rain.
Four-time champion Justine Henin extended her winning streak at Roland Garros to 23 matches and 39 sets by polishing off Klara Zakopalova 6-3 6-3.
The 22nd seed will now face Maria Sharapova in arguably the clash of the tournament so far after the Russian 12th seed also converted a one-set overnight lead into 6-3 6-3 success over Kirsten Flipkens.
Marion Bartoli (13) finished off her match against Olivia Sanchez with a 7-5 6-2 win.
In second-round clashes which started on Friday, seventh seed Samantha Stosur beat Rossana De Los Rios 4-6 6-1 6-0, Daniela Hantuchova (23) got past Olga Govortsova 7-5 6-3 and Yanina Wickmayer (16) ousted Sybille Bammer 7-6 (7/4) 1-6 7-5.
But 25th seed Jie Zheng was dumped out 6-4 6-3 by Anastasia Pivovarova.
Third seed Caroline Wozniacki was made to work hard for a 6-3 6-4 success over Romania's Alexandra Dulgheru, the 31st seed, in her third-round match.
The Danish teenager, who reached the final of the US Open last year, came from 3-1 down in the first set and 4-1 behind in the second.
She advances to meet 14th seed Flavia Pennetta from Italy, who trounced Slovenia's Polona Hercog 6-3 6-0.
Nadia Petrova will need to return on Saturday to complete her match with Aravane Rezai.
The 19th seed has already spurned three match points against the 15th-ranked Frenchwoman, and with the light fading on Philippe Chatrier, Rezai broke her opponent to keep the match alive and delicately poised with the score 7-6 4-6 7-7.
Fifth seed Elena Dementieva had to come from a set down but eventually got the better of Aleksandra Wozniak 6-7 (7/2) 6-3 6-4.
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