WHEN the players began to emerge blinking from the shelter of the club house here on Saturday morning, just about everybody knew that someone was going to pay the price for the week that most had spent trying to dream up new ways to kill time.

Not many could have guessed, however, that prominent amongst the victims in the much-delayed men's competition would be second seed Goran Ivanisevic, who arrived on court for his match against Magnus Norman with his service game obviously recharged after the break but the rest of his game awry. What else is new?

Norman, of course, is no slouch, a point he has underlined already this season with wins over the likes of Andre Agassi, Petr Korda and, at the French Open, world number one Pete Sampras.

Nevertheless his game, based as it is on his fine ground shots has served him best on hard and clay courts, and given this record there was little, it appeared, that he would be capable of doing on grass against a man of Ivanisevic's sheer ferocity.

The fact that the Croat set a new record for aces in a single Wimbledon match he served no fewer than 46 in the five-set match should have gone a long way towards guaranteeing his place in the last 32.

Instead the Swede's success in returning, particularly during the first and fifth sets became the foundation of the underdog's progress.

In the fifth, his pursuit of a lace in the third round was briefly halted when tie had to, not for the first time in his career, receive treatment for chest pains. If anybody doubted his heart, however, he proved its strength in a nerve-racking finale to the match, completing the upset of the championships so far by 14 games to 12 after just under 200 minutes on court.

So upset was Ivanisevic by the defeat that he left the All England Club without attending the obligatory press conference, a move for which he will no doubt be fined.

Norman's glory, however, was to be short-lived for, having earned a match with Brett Steven of New Zealand yesterday, he promptly lost in four sets without ever shoring the same sort of form again.

Ivanisevic, the former two-time finalist, meanwhile, proved to be something of an except ion when it came to the fates of favourites in tough five-setters.

Unlike him, Tim Henman, Richard Krajicek, the defending champion, and Greg Rusedski, all of whom will be looking to capitalise on the second seed's elimination from the bottom half of the draw, managed to survive scares in lengthy matches.

Krajicek scraped his way past Andrei Pavel on Saturday evening before turning in a far more con evincing performance against David Rikl of the Czech Republic yesterday afternoon.

Also on Saturday, Rusedski completed a fine comeback, from two sets down against Jonathan Stark to win by 11 games to nine in the fifth.

On Centre Court yesterday Henman had to hang about even longer before finishing Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands off in the 26th game of the deciding set.

"I guess you could say it was the biggest win of my life," said an obviously relieved Hen man who saved what had looked to be an impossible situation when Haarhuis served for the match at 5-4 up in the fifth.

From that point on the 31-Year-old Dutchman found himself having repeatedly to serve to stay in the proceedings while under tremendous pressure from an increasingly fanatical crowd.

Neither player, however, went close to breaking again until Henman managed it at 13-12 in front. He now faces Krajicek.