Yanina Wickmayer hits a return to Italy's Sara Errani during their third-round Australian Open match. The Belgian's win set up a meeting with her compatriot Justine Henin. Photograph: Andrew Brownbill/AP

The Age-old question that Britons loved to pose asked people to name five famous Belgians. Art lovers and avid readers usually made it, but the question was made redundant several years ago when Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin arrived on the tennis scene and promptly became two of the sport's best players. After a brief retirement, both have returned with immediate success, but the chances of a Belgian champion here at the Australian Open receded when Clijsters suffered a shock defeat to Nadia Petrova of Russia in the third round.

The former world No1 Henin still remains in the draw but the talk of the town is her opponent today, Yanina Wickmayer, the third Belgian. The 20-year-old qualifier tomorrow takes on Henin for a place in the quarter-finals. Reaching the last eight of a grand slam is a good enough achievement on its own, but for Wickmayer it is a minor miracle.

Having reached the semi-finals of the US Open last September, Wickmayer was on a high as 2009 came to an end only for her world to fall in when in November it was announced that she had been banned for a year for breaching anti-doping regulations. The whereabouts rule requires tennis players to give a location where they will be for one hour per day, three months in advance, but Wickmayer failed to ­comply.

Belgian tennis officials promptly banned her for a year but the penalty was overturned in December. Unfortunately for Wickmayer,the entry date for the Australian Open had already passed, which meant that her only way to get into the main draw would be through qualifying. That would have been enough for many players to kick up a fuss and not play but Wickmayer knuckled down and won three qualifying matches to make the main draw.

Once there, she refused to give in and three solid wins sent her through to a fourth-round showdown with Henin. The wear and tear of matches seems to be catching up with Wickmayer – she pulled out of the doubles today – and on paper Henin ought to win, but for the third Belgian none of that matters.

"I don't think I have to prove to anyone anything," she said. "I think it's good for myself to prove myself I'm worth being in main draw and winning matches in main draw. That's the main thing. I'm really glad the way I handled [qualifying], how strong I was on court. I don't feel any revenge to anyone."

In her third-round win over Sara Errani of Italy, Wickmayer had treatment for a back problem. Her withdrawal from the doubles was a precaution to protect her chances of beating Henin, but she needs to be at 100% for Henin is unlikely to show her any leniency.

"I've never played Yanina in the past," Henin said. "When I retired, she was just coming up. But she proved with her results last year that she is in top form. Again, this week she's fighting a lot so I know it's going to be a tough match for myself. It's a bit disappointing that we're in the same part of the draw but in another way, Belgian tennis proves that we are back, and that's a very good feeling."

The shock defeat of the US Open champion, Clijsters, by Petrova robbed the tournament of a potential champion. Henin struggled to get past Alisa Kleybanova of Russia and in some ways Wickmayer would probably rather that her compatriot had cruised into the last 16.

Before her retirement, Henin had been as mentally strong as anyone on the tour and she rarely had two bad matches in a row. Having been within a point of going a set and 4-1 down to Kleybanova, she is unlikely to play as badly twice in a row.

Henin, who has won seven grand-slam titles, reached the final of the warm-up event in Brisbane, where she lost to Clijsters, and though she admits she is getting used to the pressures of a grand-slam event again, with every round she becomes more and more dangerous.

"It's a big challenge to come back and I think I love challenges," Henin said. "That's the way I am. I cannot live normally. I need always to push myself and to push the limits back. I'm very proud of what I'm doing right now. I enjoy my game out there. That's the most important thing."

Henin appeared to be suffering physically against Kleybanova after an epic win over the world No 5 Elena Dementieva in the previous round. She knows recovering will be tough, but remains confident. "If we talk about long‑term, I know my body is going to be fine," she said. "These few weeks, it's matches at a top level. After almost two years off, it's normal that it takes a little bit to really get used to it physically, that the muscles are in good shape enough."

Serena Williams advanced to the fourth round with a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro and then revealed details of a conversation she had with Prince Wiilliam on Thursday when he visited Melbourne.

"I told him that I might like his little brother better because he's the little brother, and he laughed and said he might like (sister) Venus better because she's older," she said. "So we just had a little joke about that."

Serena, who will next meet 13th seed Samantha Stosur, said her match against the diminutive Spaniard, who beat Venus last year at Melbourne Park, had been a bit tougher than the one-sided scoreline indicated. The final game of the first set took eight set points before she sealed it and only after she had spent a short time deep behind the baseline talking to herself.

"It was definitely the toughest six-love set. Especially in the end because she was really fighting for it. I didn't want to lose that game... I thought, 'okay, Serena, don't put too much pressure on this. Worst case scenario it will be 5-1'. At the end of day I'm glad I didn't lose that game."

Venus Williams set up a fourth round encounter against Italy's Francesco Schiavone after putting out local hope Casey Dellacqua. The older Williams, who recently completed a degree in fashion design and has her own clothing label, wore her new signature dress while beating Dellacqua 6-1, 7-6.