Defending champion Amelie Mauresmo was not troubled by Mara Santangelo as she booked her place in the last 16 at a dreary Wimbledon on Saturday.

Much of the day had seen the famous covers repel the rain at SW19, but Mauresmo wasted little time when the showers briefly stopped.

The fourth seed took just 25 minutes to win an indistinguished first set 6-1 on Centre Court, and 32 minutes later it was all over as the Frenchwoman eased to a 6-1 6-2 victory.

Afterwards Mauresmo said the tournament was "very open" before awarding herself eight out of 10 for her first-week performance.

She said: "I expect to have to do some more fighting in the next few rounds but I'm fine with that because most of my game is in good shape now. I'm about an eight out of 10 at the moment - but then again I'm a perfectionist."

Maria Sharapova set up a potential fourth-round clash with fellow former champion Venus Williams as she powered past Ai Sugiyama 6-3 6-3 on Court One.

The Florida-based Russian squandered two match points before securing victory just as heavy rain set in at SW19 once more.

On the outside courts, Williams was locked in a tough battle with Akiko Morigami when the rain came. She took the first set 6-2 but then went into meltdown and was a double break down at 4-1 when the players came off.

Russian seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Elena Dementieva were all a set to the good, while it was a similar story for teenagers Nicole Vaidisova and Ana Ivanovic.

In the only men's match to start, Tomas Berdych had taken the first set 6-4 against Hyung-Taik Lee, with the Korean leading 3-2 in the second which remains on serve.

Despite the weather problems, the All England Club ruled out the possibility of play on middle Sunday.

Despite enjoying just one fully rain-free day so far this year, chief executive Ian Ritchie said the tournament was still sufficiently on schedule not to order Sunday play for the fourth time.

Ritchie said: "Irrespective of the amount of play today, the middle Saturday, I can confirm that we are sufficiently on schedule and that therefore there will be no play tomorrow."

As a result of the rain, several matches were put back until Monday.

Among them was Briton Jamie Murray's mixed doubles clash. He and world number three singles player Jelena Jankovic have teamed up for Wimbledon, but the Scottish-Serbian partnership will have to wait 48 hours for their first-round match against British pair Richard Bloomfield and Sarah Borwell.

Play will start at 1100 BST on all courts on Monday in a bid to make up for lost time.