Serena Williams eases into Berlin third round

The American former world number one, on course to meet top seeded Belgian Justine Henin in the quarter-finals, needed little more than an hour to beat the unseeded Italian on the clay at the Steffi Graf stadium.

"I definitely have a lot of confidence and I'm excited to be playing and winning again," Williams said in a courtside television interview.

An eight-times grand slam tournament winner, Williams will meet either 11th seed Agnieszka Radwanska or German qualifier Angelika Bachmann in the next round.

Earlier, seventh seeded Russian Elena Dementieva took less than an hour to overcome Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko 6-1 6-2 while Marion Bartoli, the eighth seed, breezed past the Czech Republic's Lucie Safarova 6-0 6-3.

Unseeded Russian Vera Dushevina upset Switzerland's Patty Schnyder, beating the ninth seed 6-2 6-3 in their first-round match.

Lucky loser Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan, who replaced the injured Amelie Mauresmo in the draw, made the most of her good fortune to beat another Frenchwoman, Aravane Rezai, 7-5 7-5 in the first round.

Mauresmo pulled out of the $1.3 million (658,000 pound) claycourt event on Monday due to a rib injury caused by too much coughing.

Henin and last year's winner Ana Ivanovic of Serbia are not in action until Wednesday.

(Writing by Kevin Fylan and Iain Rogers; Editing by Sonia Oxley)