The 18-year-old Russian second seed won 6-0, 6-1 on the hottest day of the championships so far and has dropped just five games in two ties.

It was also her 19th win in a row on grass taking in back-to-back titles at Birmingham and last year's Wimbledon crown.

The bubbly Karatantcheva had defeated Venus Williams last month to reach the quarterfinals of the French Open in Paris, but the Bulgarian looked shell-shocked faced with the sheer power of the much taller Sharapova.

Her relief was manifest when she finally managed to win a game at 6-0 and 3-0 down in the second, but a few minutes later she was heading back inside and Sharapova was blowing kisses to the crowd.

"I just played great tennis today," the Russian said.

"I played much better than in the first round when there was a little bit of nerves and hopefully I can keep improving from now on in."

Joining her in the second round was the champion in 2000 and 2001 Venus Williams of the United States who hit back from an indifferent start to defeat Nicole Pratt of Australia 7-5, 6-3.

There was another big win for Greece's improving Eleni Daniilidou, the conquerer of French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne in the first round.

She coasted past Laura Granville of the United States 6-2, 6-0 and has a clear chance of making it through to the quarterfinals in the bottom half of the draw.

Also going through were French 16th seed Nathalie Dechy who sent packing the last British hope in the women's tournament Jane O'Donoghue, Slovak 20th seed Daniela Hantuchova in three sets against Shahar Peer of Israel and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia.

Srebotnik, who defeated South Korea's Cho Yoon-Jeong 7-5, 6-4, will be the next opponent for Sharapova.

In the men's tournament, 19-year-old Frenchman Richard Gasquet needed three tie-breaks to defeat Belgian qualifier Gilles Elseneer 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 6-2

Gasquet, the winner at Nottingham on grass last week, will meet French Open winner Rafael Nadal in the third round if the Spaniard makes it through his tie later in the day.

Igor Andreev made it three Russians through to the third round with a 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win over Davide Sanguinetti of Italy, while Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic got the better of France's Fabrice Santoro 6-1, 4-6, 7-6, 6-3 in a battle of the veterans.