For many fraught moments during her third-round match against Japan's Ai Sugiyama, the tournament's 12th seed, Martina Hingis, would have had clear flashbacks of lounging on the beach at Monte Carlo, in the VIP booth at the top formula races, or jet-setting around the world during the three years she spent away from the game of tennis.
During an oscillating match on Centre Court, the Swiss miss complained about line calls, lost her normally sure footing on the back-court grass, tightened up toward the end of the match and again allowed her serve to be beaten about the court.
For the former world number one, it was a return to the place she won the women's title as a 16-year-old in 1997. Now 25, Hingis was anxious to show her carefully choreographed return, which began in the autumn of 2005 and has taken her to a ranking of 15 in the world, could deliver another Grand Slam title.
Against her old adversary Sugiyama, ranked 21st in the world, Hingis had good reason to believe passage into the fourth round was a likelihood, if not a certainty.
The resident of Kanagawa, who turns 30 on July 5th, had defeated Hingis only once previously - in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The other six matches they played went with Hingis and only two required three sets.
In that context the three-set defeat was a nasty twist in her Wimbledon journey, and though Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded five, was also knocked out, by China's Na Li, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, it was the departure of Hingis that took a little glamour from the bottom half of the women's draw.
The match was set up for Hingis to take in the third set after she had let it unravel 7-5, 3-6. The expectation was that her serve would steady and the movement around court for which she is known and admired would return to turn the match around.
Certainly, that happened but only intermittently. At the beginning of the third set when Hingis raced to a 3-0 lead, a few sighs of relief wafted around the most famous court in the world. At that point everyone thought she had the match stitched.
"So did I," said Hingis "Those games were really draining. I started feeling my thigh but there was no excuse. I knew today it was crucial because she's a very good player, a tough cookie and a strong survivor. Definitely there are certain things I have to think about."
Of the next seven games, Hingis won just one, Sugiyama racing to 6-4 and the match.
"There is no explanation for me right now," she added. "That third set . . . Maybe I used to get away with it but now people just come and bite you."
Li, seeded 27, is only the second Chinese player to make the last 16 of a Grand Slam singles event after her fine recovery against 2004 US Open champion Kuznetsova on court three.
The 24-year-old from Wuhan smacked forehand winners at will after losing the first set.
"When I was in the lockerroom afterwards I still couldn't quite believe it," said Li, who lost to Kuznetsova in the French Open third round and was one of a record three Chinese women to have reached the Wimbledon third round this year.
Never flashy but impressively honest and effective, the number two seed, Kim Clijsters, advanced 6-3, 6-2 against China's Jie Zheng, while her compatriot and third seed, Justine Henin-Hardenne, knocked out the Russian 17-year-old Anna Chakvetadze, again in straight sets.
