By James Borg · June 28, 2009 · 7:07 PM

LONDON – Three Americans advance on the sixth day at Wimbledon – including a surprise win by 17-year-old qualifier Melanie Oudin.

Oudin of the United States notched a shock defeat over Jelena Jankovic. As a girl she took inspiration from the Williams sisters and said to her mum: "One day I'm going to play there" at Wimbledon. She's now on course as a potential opponent of Venus Williams.

Venus put up a dominant performance to avenge her shock defeat to Carlo Suarez Navarro at the Australian Open six months ago, to beat her 6-0 6-4. The defending champion wrapped up the opening set in 33 minutes, winning most of the baseline rallies and firing some great winners at the net. After going 2-0 up in the following set, there was a fight back from the Spaniard as she took the next three games. Venus took charge again and broke in the ninth game and served out the match.

As for the other ladies, top seed Dinara Safin overcame the Belgian Kirsten Flipikens 7-5 6-1 to take her place in the fourth round.

Ana Ivanovic beat Samantha Stosur to set up a match with Venus Williams on Monday. Ivanovic's confidence has improved in each round and she said: "I feel my game is probably even better than it was when I was number one."

In another shock result French Open winner of six months ago, Svetlana Kuznetsova crashed out to 19-year-old Belgian and hard-serving player Sabine Lisicki. The 6-2 7-5 defeat for Kuznetsova came on her 24th birthday.

In the men's draw, Andy Roddick produced another powerful display as he stormed into the fourth round with a 7-6 7-6 4-6 6-3 win over Jurgen Melzer. As expected it was a game dominated by serves with the first break in the fifth game of the third set by Melzer.

Andy Murray kept home hopes alive as he destroyed Victor Troickl in straight sets in a little over 90 minutes. Tommy Haas overcame Marin Cilic in five sets, and Nikolay Davydenko was beaten by Tomas Berdych. Tenth seeded Fernando Gonzalez was unable to stem the advance of wild card Juan Carlos Ferrero in an epic five-setter that ended when Ferrero broke Gonzalez at 5-4 to book a place in the final 16.

With the first week over we can take a look at what's been occupying the minds of some of the players over the last seven days:

• With the tournament providers providing, for the first time, complimentary Kit Kat chocolates and bananas in the players' locker rooms, there's a little bit of confusion. Also, for the first time, this year there’s a ban on eating and in the locker room. Serena Williams vented her views on the subject: "I just got confused as to why there are bananas and other stuff in the locker room, unless they found another way to consume it that I'm not aware of. I don't dare want to find out."

• Roger Federer's persistent reluctance (and visual impatience) at answering press questions relating to the timing of his impending child has brought forth some statistics on the perils of fatherhood. Rod Laver's wife Mary gave birth to their son in California within hours of Laver winning the US Open in New York in 1969 (completing his Grand Slam) and it proved to be the last of his major wins. Andre Agassi added only one win to his previous tally after becoming a father. McEnroe, Lendl and Edberg all failed to win more Grand Slam crowns.

• The identical twins the Bryan Brothers, the doubles champions, had the honor this weekend of staging a musical evening in one of the Wimbledon Village pubs, where they performed as the Bryan Brothers Band. Life after tennis, perhaps.

• John McEnroe commenting on Roger Federer's 'military' style uniform this year, with gold braiding everywhere and also a waistcoat, remarked that "it's a little bit too Michael Jackson for me." Sadly and tragically, the following day the name of the pop superstar was, and still is, on the lips of the whole world.