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The former champion Maria Sharapova continued her smooth, relatively untested progress through the Wimbledon draw as she saw off Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-4, 6-3 on Friday to book her place in the last 16.
Sharapova led the second set 5-0 before Begu launched a mini recovery, but the commanding Russian soon quashed the last of the Romanian’s resistance.
Elsewhere, Australia’s 22nd seed Samantha Stosur lost 6-2 6-0 to unseeded American Coco Vandeweghe, despite winning the first two games of the match.
Belinda Bencic, 18, reached the fourth round for the first time as she beat American Bethanie Mattek-Sands 7-5 7-5. But Sharapova stepped it up one last time, sneaking out four points in a row to end it, 6-4, 6-3.
Begu quickly wilted after losing the opening set and produced an error-strewn showing in her first service game of the second, Sharapova breaking to love thanks to an ill-advised drop shot from the world number 31. “I felt good in the second and obviously she’s not going to go away at the end and she played extremely well, so I was quite happy that I was able to finish off on good form”.
“What everyone at this stage of the tournament expects is to go further and expect more, better things from yourself. As the matches get tougher, you have to raise your level”, Sharapova said.
“You have to have the belief and I absolutely do”.
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“I cherish playing in front of all those people, I want to be the competitor and I want to be the winner”.
