Defending champion Venus Williams scrambled past British number one Anne Keothavong at Wimbledon on Thursday, winning a ragged match 7-5 6-2 on Centre Court.

The 28-year-old, gunning for a fifth singles title at the grasscourt slam, found the net with alarming regularity in windy conditions and for long periods there was little evidence of the gulf in experience and class between the players.

Williams spent 69 painstaking minutes winning the first set against a player who had managed just two victories in eight attempts at Wimbledon, racking up an ugly 18 unforced errors.

The seventh-seeded American showed flashes of form in the second set as the battling Keothavong, the only British woman to gain entry into the main draw on merit and the last to survive, ran out of steam.

Keothavong double faulted at 2-5 to hand Williams match point and sealed victory when her 24-year-old opponent launched a forehand over the baseline.

Williams, who struggled to beat British wildcard Naomi Cavaday on Tuesday, began in a hurry, holding serve to love before cracking a couple of trademark forehands past dazed world number 92 Keothavong to lead 2-0.

Two Williams double faults in the next game galvanized Keothavong to break back immediately and from that point Williams was mired in mediocrity as her opponent, a fan of kick boxing, made the most of her moment in the spotlight.

Williams squandered four break points in the next game and then survived a marathon service game full of woeful errors, saving eight break points to lead 3-2.

Keothavong, who usually earns her living on the Challenger Circuit and has played tournaments this year in some of the world’s most dangerous neighborhoods, including in Lebanon when rival militias were trading gunfire, was clearly up for a scrap.

In her biggest match since she played eventual champion Maria Sharapova here in 2004, she matched Williams with some solid baseline play and occasional flashing winners and looked set for a tiebreak before wavering at 5-6.

Williams, whose career prize money of $18.5 million dwarfs the $361,900 scraped together by east Londoner Keothavong, dominated thereafter, breaking twice to set up a third round against Spanish qualifier Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.