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Wimbledon

Second seed Serena Williams made light work of her meeting with Italy's Roberta Vinci to ease through to the fourth round.

The two-time former champion gained a routine 6-3 6-4 victory on Court Two to set up a meeting with Daniela Hantuchova or Ai Sugiyama for a place in the quarter-finals.

Williams, who lost only nine games in her first two matches, twice dropped her serve to suggest she is not yet firing on all cylinders but still managed to hit 34 winners against the world number 53.

Vinci, the 26-year-old Italian who has yet to get past the third round at Wimbledon in seventh attempts, dropped her opening service game but took encouragement in the next game from a mis-hit that landed on the baseline and a rare double fault from Williams to break back.

Three of the first four games went against serve but Vinci produced two impressive service games to force her opponent to serve out for the set.

There was no realistic way back for the Italian once she dropped her serve at the start of the second set. She had to save a point to avoid going 3-0 down as the world number two tightened her grip on the match.

Williams opened up a 4-1 lead before producing her second double fault on break point to briefly give her opponent a glimmer of hope.

The battling Vinci saved two match points before the American eventually wrapped up the win in an hour and seven minutes.