Williams dressing and impressing: Venus shows glimpses of her top form

Her thunderbolt serve on match-point, beating her quickest at Wimbledon, was the exclamation mark on a much-improved performance which gave her a convincing 6-1, 7-5 victory over outclassed Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain. It also took the defending champion into the second week in fine physical condition and excellent spirits.

Impressive: Venus Williams of United States celebrates winning the women's' singles round three match against Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez

Unlike former champion Maria Sharapova, who paraded a natty style in shorts but only stayed for two matches to show them off, Williams wore her own creation of a traditional tennis dress which, she insisted, looked nice but had no effect on the way she played.

'It's really about business in general and the outcome is that us women get to wear wonderful clothes,' said Williams. 'It's a huge industry for the athletic companies. It's always getting more competitive with the designs and styles and right now the trend is to do something different. But I don't think in any way that it subtracts from the competition level or how well we're playing.

'The fact of the matter is that someone's got to win and someone's got to lose.' There was never much doubt who was going to win this contest once Williams reeled off 11 successive points early in the first set to establish a 4-0 lead and a grip on the conquest she never relinquished.

Williams turned on the power against her left-handed Spanish opponent, ranked 101st in the world, barely making a mistake during the first set and ripping down 11 aces in total. She recognises the advantage of having such heavy artillery.

'If I don't have the power that I have then I get a lot closer to average,' said Williams. 'I think the power with my movement and obviously with my strokes adds a ton to my game. It's a real blessing. And, yeah, 127mph was a good way to end it.'

The work-out fulfilled the fourtime champion's needs at this stage of the tournament after she missed a month of the season in March and April.

At resuming control to break serve with the aid of ripping groundstroke winners off each side and a nervy double-fault from her opponent. A service game held to love completed the job and set up a fourth-round meeting with little-known 18-year-old Russian Alisa Kleybanova, who beat Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-4, 6-4.

'In the second set she just changed her strategy, started playing better and got the break back,' said Williams.

'I was pretty happy because she started putting some pressure on. I had some good answers.'

Now Williams heads into week two confident that she can get through to face sister Serena in the final for the third time.

'The chances were wonderful from the beginning,' said Venus. 'That's how we see it. The more we progress, the closer it gets.'

And the clothing they wear will make no difference at all. the start it was convincing and when Williams led 4-2 in the second set, the result looked like a formality.

But Martinez Sanchez, 25, has enjoyed the best month of her stuttering singles career. After seven first-round losses in Grand Slam events, she followed up reaching her first WTA singles final in her home city of Barcelona last month by at last breaking her duck and winning two rounds on the All England Club grass, including a defeat of No32 seed Sania Mirza.

Two flashing backhand returns led to her breaking the Williams serve and reeling off three games in succession for a 5-4 lead. At last, we thought we had a match on our hands. Polite applause and absolute silence from a largely indifferent, sunbaked crowd was replaced by raucous enthusiasm.

But Williams had other ideas, resuming control to break serve with the aid of ripping groundstroke winners off each side and a nervy double-fault from her opponent. A service game held to love completed the job and set up a fourth-round meeting with little-known 18-year-old Russian Alisa Kleybanova, who beat Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-4, 6-4.

'In the second set she just changed her strategy, started playing better and got the break back,' said Williams.

'I was pretty happy because she started putting some pressure on. I had some good answers.' Now Williams heads into week two confident that she can get through to face sister Serena in the final for the third time.

'The chances were wonderful from the beginning,' said Venus. 'That's how we see it. The more we progress, the closer it gets.'

And the clothing they wear will make no difference at all.