Andy Roddick celebrates his victory over Taylor Dent at Wimbledon on Sunday

London: Champion Roger Federer continued his sure and steady march through the Wimbledon field Sunday, sweeping aside the challenge of Swede Thomas Johansson to reach the fourth round.

The Swiss top seed was joined by second seed Andy Roddick, who won his a battle of the big servers with Taylor Dent 6-3, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-1). Tim Henman also advanced, riding a wave of popular support past Hicham Arazi 7-6, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.

In the women’s draw, champion and top seed Serena Williams advanced with the minimum of fuss, walloping Spain’s Magui Serna 6-4, 6-0.

Jennifer Capriati also flexed her grasscourt muscles to send France’s Nathalie Dechy packing with a solid 7-5, 6-1 win and French fourth seed Amelie Mauresmo wasted little time securing her fourth round berth with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Slovakian Ludmila Cervanova.

Swiss top seed Federer bounced Johansson 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 in their second match on grass in three weeks. Federer also beat him in Halle and has now won all six matches against the 29-year-old and plays Ivo Karlovic next.

“I got a lot of first serves in... I felt very comfortable and started to play really well,” Federer said.

Organisers decided to play on the middle Sunday (‘People’s Sunday’) for only the third time in the history of the tournament after losing two complete days due to rain.

Roddick was pleased with his impromptu performance. “I thought I played well today,” he smiled. “I thought I lifted my game when I had to... You know, I was forced to. If I hadn’t I’d be here in a much worse mood.”

Next up for Roddick is Alexander Popp for a place in the quarter finals.

Henman never looked dominant in beating Arazi and will have to up his game considerably if he is to beat last year’s runner-up Mark Philippoussis next. The Australian beat Chile's Fernando Gonzalez.

Elsewhere, eighth seed Rainer Schuettler struggled to maintain his concentration, shuffling out a 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 victim of American 30th seed Vincent Spadea. Wayne Ferreira, playing in a record 55th straight Grand Slam tournament, lost 6-4, 4-6, 1-6, 4-6 to Schuettler’s fellow German Florian Mayer.

Serena, seeking her third successive singles crown here, started steadily but eventually her power and movement overwhelmed the 53-ranked Serna on Centre Court.

Croatian Karolina Sprem, conqueror of Venus Williams in the last round, triumphed again by the same 7-6, 7-6 scoreline, this time beating 32nd seed Meghann Shaughnessy.

Afterwards she showed little sympathy towards the umpire axed for a scoring gaffe during that second round match against Venus. “Bad luck for him,” she said. “We have so many people on the court and they need to know the score, not me. It was really big moment for me, and I didn’t think about this.”

British umpire Ted Watts made an error in the second set tie-break of Thursday’s match against twice former champion Venus when he awarded Sprem a point when she had faulted on a first serve.

Heavy rain caused play to be abandoned at 5.50pm local time with all but two of the scheduled third round singles matches completed. Rain interrupted play soon after 4.30pm local time, and there was no further action before officials called off play for the day.

Mahesh-Max advances

Meanwhile, Mahesh Bhupathi moved into the third round of the men’s doubles on Sunday while Leander Paes crashed out of the championship.

Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi won 7-5, 6-3 against Dutch pair Raemon Sluiter and Martin Verkerk. Paes and David Rikl lost their second round match against Travis Parrott and Vincent Spadea of the US 6-7 (6-8), 3-6.

In the junior event, Russian Evgeniya Rodiva beat India’s Tara Iyer 6-1, 6-3 in the girls’ singles first round. (Agencies)