Venus Williams cruised into the third round of Wimbledon with a straight-forward 6-4 6-1 victory over Slovenian Katarina Srebotnik today.
Williams, twice previously a Wimbledon champion, showed no signs of the abdominal muscle injury that troubled her at the French Open and despite her serving proving to be rather lacklustre at times, she always had the measure of her opponent.
Williams to 3-3 in the first set, soon found her range and when Srebotnik handed her three break points in the ninth game, there was little doubt that the former world number one would take the set. As it was, she missed a big chance to go set point up in the ninth, before finally taking the opener with two piercing aces.
The Slovenian's resistance crumbled in the second set and it took Williams just over an hour to ease through to a smooth victory after she broke three times to sew up the match.
Fifth seed Lindsay Davenport cruised into the third round with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Italy's Rita Grande - but admitted that she would really have to improve her game if she is to trouble the top four seeds.
Davenport breezed past the challenge of Grande and although she will be confident of beating Cara Black in the third round, she is wary or the challenge that may face here later down the line. "There's no question that those four players are right now at the very top of the game and the rest of us need to catch up," she said.
"For a while there I was one of those top players that people were always striving to get to so for me it's a little bit of a different situation and one it's difficult to like. There's no question I'm going to have to have some big wins to get back on top," Davenport added.
Daniela Hantuchova became the highest-ranked women's casualty at Wimbledon after losing a three-set marathon to Shinobu Asagoe. The Slovakian ninth seed went down 6-0 4-6 10-12 in a match that lasted over two hours.
Filed by Rob Wright
