Vasek Pospisil of Canada, left, and Jack Sock of the United States celebrate a point in their second-round doubles match at Wimbledon on July 3, 2015 in London.Julian Finney/Getty Images
Serena Williams, Wimbledon's top seed and a five-time champion, was pushed to the brink Friday by Briton Heather Watson, an instant crowd favourite on her home court due in part to her fighting spirit.
The unseeded challenger jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third set before faltering 6-2, 4-6, 7-5. Serena moves on to the fourth round and a matchup against her sister, Venus.
On the men's side, defending champion Novak Djokovic kept up his winning streak against Australian players by easily beating Bernard Tomic in the third round. In doubles, Canadian Vasek Pospisil finds himself in the third round in his quest to defend his title with American partner Jack Sock.
A day after Rafael Nadal was stunned by Dustin Brown on Centre Court, Djokovic put in a clinical performance that never gave Tomic any hopes of a similar upset. Djokovic, who won 6-3, 6-3, 6-3, has not lost to an Australian in a tour-level match since 2006.
Djokovic broke four times, never faced a break point and made just 12 unforced errors the whole match. He has not dropped a set so far in the tournament.
Women's fourth seed Maria Sharapova moved serenely into the fourth round with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu.
The 28-year-old Russian, champion at the All England Club in 2004, overpowered her 29th-seeded opponent on a sun-drenched Court 1 to take her place in the last 16.
Sharapova wasted a chance to close out the match when she served for victory at 5-1 in the second set but did not make the same mistake again and completed victory in one hour 23 minutes.
Meanwhile, Richard Gasquet of France improved to 5-0 against Grigor Dimitrov by beating the 11th-seeded Bulgarian 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 on Centre Court to make it to the second week of Wimbledon for the first time since 2012.
The 21st-seeded Gasquet needed five match points in the final game before closing out the win.
In doubles, Pospisil and Sock, the 3rd seeds, came out victorious in straight sets 6-3, 6-3, 7-6(4) against Eric Butorac and Colin Fleming to reach the third round. Pospisil remains alive in the singles draw as well, set to face James Ward of Great Britain in the third round.
Other winners include French Open champion Stan Wawrinka, who beat Fernando Verdasco in straight sets, Lucie Safarova, Kevin Anderson and American CoCo Vandeweghe, who upended Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-0.