Muguruza stays afloat

London: Former runner-up Garbine Muguruza continued her untroubled progress at Wimbledon with a 6-2, 6-2 thrashing of Romania's Sorana Cirstea to reach the fourth round on Saturday.

Cirstea, who reached the third round after American opponent Bethanie Mattek-Sands suffered a horrible knee injury on Thursday, matched Muguruza for power but made too many errors to pose a serious threat to the 14th seed.

The Romanian held on to her opening service game with an ace but Muguruza was quickly into her groove and reeled off the next five games before Cirstea managed to stem the tide briefly.

The same happened in the second set. Cirstea again held in the opening game with a backhand winner, before Muguruza changed gear and went on a five-game streak.

Muguruza, 23, showed there was more to her game than power with some silky dropshots as she powered on to victory in a little over an hour on Court Two.

She will face top seed Angelique Kerber or American Shelby Rogers in the next round.Defending champion Andy Murray defeated Italy's Fabio Fognini 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 here to advance to the fourth round at Wimbledon.

The world number 1 needed two hours and 39 minutes on Friday to dispatch the tournament's 29th seed in front of 15,000 spectators at Centre Court of the All England Club, Efe news reported.

Fognini, 30, who bested the Briton in May at the Italian Open, looked unimpressive in the first set but recovered to win the second and make it a contest.

Another former Grand Slam champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova, eased into the second week with a 6-4, 6-0 defeat of Polona Hercog of Slovenia. Grigor Dimitrov enjoyed an easy one-hour workout to reach the Wimbledon fourth round on Saturday after his opponent, Dudi Sela, became the ninth player to retire from the men's draw.

The Israeli needed attention on what appeared to be a groin injury and ended up going off court with the trainer at the end of the first set to receive treatment.

The 10-minute interruption failed to throw Dimitrov off stride and once he was up 6-1, 6-1, Sela indicated he could no longer continue.

The Bulgarian 13th seed will face either title favourite and seven-times champion Roger Federer or Germany's Mischa Zverev.
Rafael Nadal defeated big-serving Karen Khachanov in straight sets to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon here on Friday.
The 10-time French Open champion fired 41 winners to beat the Russian 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (3) at Centre Court to move into the last 16 for the first time since 2014.

United States tennis player Sam Querrey marched towards the last 16 after defeating French Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The 24th-seed won with a 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-5 score-line victory over the 32-year-old Frenchman. He next meets South African Kevin Anderson, after the Katter defeated German Ruben Bemelmans 7-6(3) 6-4, 7-6(3).