Second seed Andre Agassi disposed of Britain's Jamie Delgado - and immediately threw down the gauntlet to his great rival, Pete Sampras.

With his power an poise, Agassi subdued Delgado and the partisan crowd on the way to a straight sets victory on Centre Court.

Afterwards the American revealed how much he would love to be the man to deny Sampras, the number one seed, his eighth Wimbledon title.

"I would be one match away from winning Wimbledon and to be playing Pete, that's something I would choose to spend my time thinking about and reading about the day after.

"In many ways he's been a thorn in my side. In other ways he's brought out some of the tennis that I have only dreamt about playing.

"I think as great a career as you can possibly have, something would be missing if you didn't have that complete antithesis that kind of pushes you further.

"That's where I've been incredibly lucky, I have had the chance of playing against and watching arguably the greatest player."

Pressure point

But Agassi needed no foil to raise his game against Delgado.

Though the Briton began brightly, his early gambles did not pay off while his opponent hit the ground running.

Mixing powerful forehands with occasional forays to the net, the American never allowed the Brit into any of the three sets.

The 24-year-old from Maidenhead matched Agassi during the opening four games of the first set but seemed to crack any time Agassi put him under pressure.

Agassi broke twice in the opening set, the second time to take it 6-2.

Brief fightback

The second set was a much closer affair, with both players holding serve until the score reached 5-4 to the American.

Then a combination of pressure and Agassi aggression got to Delgado, as he lost his serve to love.

Perhaps disheartened by his second set capitulation, Delgado seemed off the pace in the third and final set.

But he was able to mount a brief fightback during the closing stages.

Facing three match-points at 2-5, Delgado produced some rare serving power to hold serve.

But his respite was brief, with Agassi producing two more match-points in the next game and taking the match when Delgado failed to make a backhand approach.