Safina makes third round in straight sets

World No. 1 Dinara Safina was a steady straight-set winner Thursday in second-round play at the Wimbledon Championships in London.

No. 3-seeded Venus Williams, the event’s two-time defending champion, and fifth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, who beat Safina for the French Open title this month, also took straight-set wins Thursday.

Safina advanced with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Rossana de los Rios that was a better performance than her first-round victory. While the scores were basically the same, Safina cut her unforced error total nearly in half from Tuesday and didn’t allow de los Rios a break opportunity.

Williams dropped just six points on serve in a 6-3, 6-2 romp over Kateryna Bondarenko and ran her Wimbledon winning streak to 16 matches.

Kuznetsova needed just an hour to dispatch Pauline Parmentier 6-3, 6-2. Like Safina and Williams, Kuznetsova didn’t face a break point Thursday.

Highly seeded players also on Thursday’s schedule included sixth-seeded Jelena Jankovic and No. 9-seeded Caroline Wozniacki.