Serena storms thru'

Wimbledon champions Serena Williams and Andy Murray raised the roof at the US Open on Thursday, powering into the third round with decisive straight-sets victories while on Friday 2014 champion Marin Cilic crashed out in the third round.

World number one Williams defeated fellow American Vania King 6-3, 6-3, her 306th Grand Slam singles match win tying her with Martina Navratilova for the most ever for a woman.

She fired 13 aces, with a total of 38 winners against 87th-ranked wild card King.

Murray, who downed tenacious Spaniard Marcel Granollers 6-4, 6-1, 6-4, had played with the rain drumming on the new Arthur Ashe stadium roof, adding to the noise the US Open is famous for.

Nevertheless, after needing seven set points to seal the first frame, Murray broke Granollers twice in the second set and once in the third to move through to a meeting with Italian Paolo Lorenzi.

Rio Olympics silver medallist and 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro closed out the action on Ashe with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-3, 6-2 victory over 19th seeded American Steve Johnson.

Kei Nishikori of Japan waited out a third-set rain delay en route to a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over 20-year-old Russian qualifier Karen Khachanov.

Third-seeded Swiss Stan Wawrinka was also up against a qualifier, advancing with a 6-1, 7-6 (7/4), 7-5 victory over 243rd-ranked Italian Alessandro Giannessi.

Eighth-seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem downed Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 to line up a meeting with Spain's Pablo Carreno-Busta, who rallied from two sets down to beat Serbian Janko Tipsarevic 3-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4.

Australian Nick Kyrgios, the 14th seed, put on a serving clinic, firing 27 aces and winning 45 of 48 first-serve points in a 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Argentina's Horacio Zeballos.

Women's fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland survived an early onslaught from US Open debutant Naomi Broady to beat the Briton 7-6 (11/9), 6-3.

Two-time winner Venus Williams coasted to the 70th US Open match win of her career with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Germany's Julia Goerges.

FRIDAY'S ACTION

Former champion Cilic crashed out of the US Open, falling 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 to 26th-seeded American Jack Sock.

Sock will seek a quarter-final berth against France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) winner over South African Kevin Anderson.

On the women's side former runners-up Caroline Wozniacki and Roberta Vinci reached the last-16.

Wozniacki clinched a seventh win in seven meetings over unorthodox Monica Niculescu of Romania.

The Dane's 6-3, 6-1 victory on Arthur Ashe Stadium, which featured eight breaks of serve, was another noise-affected affair, but this time it was Wozniacki complaining that her opponent was making too much noise every time she employed her bizarre forehand slice.

Vinci, the Italian seventh seed and runner-up to compatriot Flavia Pennetta in 2015, overcame 21-year-old Carina Witthoeft 6-0, 5-7, 6-3.