“I still want to get out to a little bit of a faster start but I was really focused and calm,” Williams said as she came within just six wins of Martina Navratilova’s open-era record of 306 slam wins.

Williams has now won 82 matches at Wimbledon and remains on course to equal Steffi Graf’s open-era record of 22 slam titles with her seventh Wimbledon crown.

Williams took the starring role as play was held on the middle Sunday for only the fourth time in Wimbledon history, and the first time since 2004, as organisers tried to clear the backlog caused by days of rain.

Australian 15th-seed Nick Kyrgios booked a last-16 clash with world No 2 Andy Murray after beating Feliciano Lopez 6-3 6-7 (2/7) 6-3 6-4 in another tie held over from Saturday at one set all.

Murray, the 2013 champion, is the top seed left in the draw after world No 1 Novak Djokovic was knocked out by Sam Querrey on Saturday.

Fans who managed to secure tickets for yesterday’s extra day of play got their money’s worth on court two, where Jo-Wilfried Tsonga downed US marathon man John Isner 6-7 (3/7) 3-6 7-6 (7/5) 6-2 19-17.

French 12th seed Tsonga, a semifinalist in 2011 and 2012, saved a match point in the 32nd game of the final set. The last set lasted more than two hours.

Isner, the 18th seed, famously won the longest tennis match ever played when he beat another Frenchman, Nicolas Mahut, 70-68 in the final set at Wimbledon in the first round in 2010.

That five-setter, stretched over three days, lasted 11 hours and five minutes.