Despite being stretched to three sets by Zheng Saisai in the previous round, Barty only took 77 minutes to knock out the Wimbledon champion 7-5 6-1.

The last time the two met was at this year’s Sydney International final where Kerber won.

“She’s always very difficult to play against. She’s one of the best players in the world. And you know you have to come out here, enjoy and have fun and try and play as well as you can,” Barty said.

“(I did) very well last year. It was an amazing week with some amazing memories and it’s certainly nice to be back on this beautiful Centre Court playing some good tennis and getting further and further into the tournament.”

Barty, who is a 2017 finalist at this event, forehand did the damage while her serve was also solid and finished with more winners and less unforced errors than Kerber.

Barty will now face world No.39 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Wednesday afternoon AEST.