Triple century milestone for Serena

London : Serena Williams clinched her 300th Grand Slam victory as the defending champion raced into the Wimbledon fourth round with a 6-3, 6-0 demolition of Germany's Annika Beck on Sunday.

Williams's triple century moved the world number one above Chris Evert into sole ownership of second place in the all-time list, with only Martina Navratilova's Open era record of 306 ahead of her.

The 34-year-old has now won 82 matches at Wimbledon as she remains on course to equal Steffi Graf's Open era record of 22 Grand Slam titles with her seventh Wimbledon crown.

She was in peak form on Centre Court, hitting 25 winners and seven aces as she took just 51 minutes to set up a last 16 clash with Russian 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Oh, was it? Cool. Oh, nice. I had no idea. That's awesome, right? I think that's a lot of matches. It's a lot of wins,” Williams said when told of her landmark.

I thought it was good. I still want to get out to a little bit of a faster start but I was really focused and calm.”“Obviously I love having that Sunday off but I'm a little behind in my matches so I guess I had to play an extra day.”

For only the fourth time, Wimbledon had thrown open its gates on a middle Sunday and Serena's longevity meant she was one of the few current players who had played on the last extra day 12 years ago, defeating Spain's Magui Serna.

Beck was just 10 then and she had reached the last 32 at Wimbledon for the first time this year thanks in large part to a first round escape act when she saved three match points before defeating Heather Watson.

American Coco Vandeweghe got the Wimbledon Middle Sunday party started on Centre Court, beating sixth seed Roberta Vinci 6-3, 6-4 in front of an excitable crowed.

Juan Martin del Potro's first Wimbledon campaign for three years ended in disappointing fashion as the Argentine crumbled to a 6-7(4), 7-6(6), 7-5, 6-1 defeat by Frenchman Lucas Pouille on Sunday.

Source:AFP