The players' continued interest at Wimbledon in the World Cup even extends to world number one Pete Sampras, despite his own admission that he knows very little about the game. He did offer this opinion, though, on the England-Argentina clash: "I felt so bad for that guy last night.

"I don't know football that well but it was a very exciting first half, some scoring and you know losing on penalties is tough, like a tie-break in the fifth."

Goran Ivanisevic, a soccer nut, was able to make some more considered observations. "I predicted that Croatia would make the semis and then lose to Italy. I predicted England would get to the final but they lost yesterday, you just can't trust them. Hopefully my first prediction is wrong. Maybe they will beat both Germany and Italy."