Venus Williams made it sweet 16 at Wimbledon today with a routine 6-3, 6-2 victory over Kateryna Bondarenko.

The defending champion, who also won the title in 2007, has now triumphed in 16 successive matches on the All England Club grass and looks in great shape to make it a hat-trick of championships.

She said: "That's a great statistic for me. I know some people have done better than that but it is a great achievement and I want to make it more."

Williams took just 69 minutes on Court One to overcome Bondarenko who struggled to make any significant headway against the American's power game.

Williams wore heavy strapping on her left knee during the match but afterwards dismissed any injury concerns.

She said: "The strapping was just for support, I felt really comfortable out there and the match worked out alright.

"I felt like I needed to be aggressive and take control of the points and that is the way I want to play throughout these championships.

"Everything worked great for me. She forced the issues in the rallies and I had to play a better shot every time so I was glad to come out on top."

The No3 seed faces Carla Suarez Navarro after the Spaniard beat Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 7-5, 4-6, 6-1.

French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova remained on course for back-to-back grand slam titles when she overpowered Pauline Parmentier 6-1, 6-3.

Kuznetsova stamped her authority on her French opponent in the opening game, which she took to love in the space of just one minute.

After that, the match on Court No4 turned into an exhibition of the fifth seed's whipping forehand from the baseline, 98mph serves and stinging service returns.

The 23-year-old Russian set herself up to become the first winner of successive slams since Serena Williams in 2002 by outclassing compatriot and world No1 Dinara Safina at Roland Garros this month.

Samantha Stour, the 18th seed from Australia, survived a scare against Germany's Tatjana Malek before coming through 4-6, 7-6, 6-4.