As Rafa Nadal squeezed the last ounce of Latin drama from his second-round match on Centre Court, defending women's champion Venus Williams was performing the same nerve-tugging routine against compatriot Lisa Raymond for the benefit of those punters with less expensive tickets just across the walkway on Court One.
Williams has a peculiar habit of going missing from matches for long periods before realising the full extent of the consequences and returning with the sort of vigour and intensity that only an impending calamity can bring to a contest.
Occasionally she has been unable to rescue herself from such precipitous folly but yesterday the five times Grand Slam winner reached for the heavy guns in her arsenal, calibrated them for maximum destruction and carpet-bombed the poor 32-year-old Raymond. It would have been a Indian summer for the 84th-ranked Pennsylvanian, who had beaten Williams just once in five previous meetings, had she managed to keep her out of the game after taking the first set 6-7.
But the natural rules of ebb and flow in matches are regularly distorted by the volume and power in the game of both Venus and her sister Serena. From the brink of defeat in the second set, she reeled off a string of consecutive games to save face and turn the match in her favour.
At a set down, and trailing 5-2 in the second, Williams thundered through nine straight games, winning the second set 7-5 and paving the way into the third set with a further four straight games. She finally completed the match in one hour 42 minutes, a good deal relieved.
"I just happened to play some bad shots to get broken (serve)," said Williams. "I started playing better in that second set. Just picked up on my technique and my game. I just seemed to get another break and another break. I was happy that third set was a lot smoother than the second two."
Seven security guards and a blonde-haired figure in the middle walking towards the lockerroom. It most be Maria Sharapova. No one but Maria has a seven-man security guard entourage to transport her across the All England Club. Just so you get the picture, it's one guard at the front to cut a path through the bodies and six around her in a circle. She was smiling after a satisfactory day's work.
The Russian teenager could afford the 100-watt beam following her 6-2, 6-2 win over American Ashley Harkleroad for a place in the third round. No Williams-type departures for Sharapova, however, in a match that was full of her typical competitive intensity. The clenched fists and the Russian conversations she has with her racquet against the back wall were all part of an impressively complete performance, although there was a certain degree of frustration from not being able to close the deal against the 20-year old in the final game. Afterwards in the interview room, it was same as usual.
"So you're a stamp collector, Maria?"
"Oh God stop. Everyone's calling me a dork now. We're getting emails like from stamp collecting magazines asking to do interviews," she protested.
"You don't grunt (when stamp collecting)?"
"No."
"What's your favourite stamp then?"
"Oh my goodness. I'm going to be called an absolute geek tomorrow."
That would be a terrible thing.
Meanwhile, Amelie Mauresmo, the top seed this year, and seventh seed Elena Dementieva are through. Dementieva defeated Meghan Shaughnessy 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 while Mauresmo took two sets against Samantha Stosur, winning 6-4, 6-2.
