Williams sails into 4th round; Tsonga and Isner go to 19-17

But for Isner, déjà vu does not quite cut it and he would surely be the first to sign up for a rule-change to make Wimbledon, the Australian Open and French Open follow the US Open by playing a tiebreak in the final set. The final set alone lasted 2 hours, 8 minutes.

“It’s good to be alive”, said Tsonga, who is 6-0 in five-set matches at Wimbledon.

For Isner, it’s his third straight third-round exit at the All-England Club.

‘I would like to have the tie-break in the fifth set – said Isner, who played the longest match of tennis history against Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon 2010 – and I said it a lot of times.

Isner led two sets to one when play suspended because of darkness on Saturday.

“But I know it’s a very long road to get better and get 100%”.

Williams’s triple century moved the world No 1 above Chris Evert into sole ownership of second place in the all-time list, with only Martina Navratilova’s Open era record of 306 ahead of her.

The 18th seed reached match point after Tsonga ended a rapid net exchange – which featured a slam-dunk smash and a flashy reflex volley – by swiping a backhand volley into the tramlines.

Key to the match: At three hours, it was the longest women’s match of the tournament.

“But I can’t do anything about it”, he said.

The 31-year-old, seeded number 12, will play either Andy Murray or Nick Kyrgios in the quarter-finals.

“Obviously, I love having that Sunday off, but I’m a little behind in my matches, so I guess I had to play an extra day”, Williams said.

After falling an early break behind at 2-1, Williams won 11 of the last 12 games and 24 of the second set’s 28 points.

Former semi-finalist Juan-Martin Del Potro who beat No. 4 seed Stan Wawrinka in the previous round, bowed out to Lucas Pouille of France, failing to capitalise on taking the opening set.

“Every time I step out on the court, if I don’t win, it’s major national news”, Williams said a day after her counterpart in the men’s draw, No. 1 and defending champion Novak Djokovic, was ousted. It’s a little bit sad because a few days ago I won my first match and I waited two days to play my second match. Bacsinszky made it to the quarter-finals past year, but failed to break serve once on Sunday.

She was in peak form on Centre Court, hitting 25 winners and seven aces as she took just 51 minutes to set up a last 16 clash with Russian 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Yet Roberta Vinci, Timea Bacsinszky, Barbora Strycova and Sloane Stephens bowed out, all bar the latter losing to lower-ranked opponents.

The 28th-seeded American advanced to the quarterfinals by beating Nicolas Mahut of France 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-4 on Court 18.