This has become a belts-and-braces championship for the top seeds. It's on and off as quickly as possible and duck the showers.

Pat Cash, the winner here in 1987, said this week that the most difficult thing to contend with at a Wimbledon championship is the weather. The crowded locker rooms and the hanging around test those aspects of a player's mentality that are only ever examined for two weeks in London each year.

As the television cameras swept around the concourses and sought out celebrities at the All England club on Saturday, when a short window of just over an hour allowed a couple of matches to be completed, the only people, who did not seem quite as exasperated by the foulness as the other 30,000, were the two former West Indian cricket captains, Clive Lloyd and Brian Lara, who had been invited to the royal box.

The sport of cricket understands weather.

Even with a backlog of 90 matches, 32 of which are in the junior event, the organisers are not yet panicking or considering a third week's play.

But that could change over the next couple of days, although yesterday, the withdrawal of Tommy Haas to give Roger Federer a bye into the quarter-finals has reduced the Centre Court program by one match at least.

Federer's scheduled fourth-round opponent pulled out yesterday afternoon with a torn stomach muscle.

Given his economical dissection of Marat Safin in the last round, the top seed's game is evidently in fine fettle despite missing the pre-Wimbledon event in Halle, Germany.

The removal of Haas ensures the he will enter the quarter-final in pristine condition. God knows he needs it doesn't he?

Injury prone, Haas, who was once ranked as highly as world number two, sustained the injury in his third-round win over Dmitry Tursunov.

Now Federer will face either 2003 French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero or Janko Tipsarevic in the last eight. Ironically, this was Haas's first tournament since retiring in the opening round of the Masters Series event in Rome in May with an injury to the rotator joint in his shoulder.

"I felt it in my previous match. "I'm just going to go home now and get this thing under control. I will follow the rest of the tournament on TV," said he 29-year-old.

"I wish I could have been on Centre Court but it's not to be. The way I was playing I think I'm one of the guys who could have been dangerous for Roger. It would have been a nice opportunity."

Lara's advice to those pushed to carving their names on the Wimbledon locker room seats was to try and relax and think of anything other than the match. Tell that to the hyper active Andy Roddick, now being coached by the intense Jimmy Connors.

Roddick, who sees success this week as a career priority, knows that if he can beat Paul-Henri Mathieu, one of the four Frenchmen still in the hunt, then he is probably one match short of a defining semi-final match up with Federer.

Mathieu beat Roddick in their only previous match, but that was in Canada on a hard court two years ago.

While Roddick is winning, he has not been playing well. Still, for the Frenchman, it will take a massive performance to deny the only American standing a place in the next round.

Rafael Nadal will warm the crowd in the first match on court one. The Spanish champion from the French Open, who questioned the wisdom of trying to play under such conditions on Saturday, reluctantly knocked up on Centre Court, before being sent scampering back to cover without a ball being played. So he resumes against the Swedish number one, Robin Soderling.

Seeded two to 28, the disparity in ability is considerable but the weather here not only affects dispositions but play too. Nadal's game thrives on hot conditions where the ball bounces higher and readily accepts his lethal topspin. The damp air and grass is less receptive to both bounce and spin.

"I am feeling far more calm this year and not under the same sort of pressure," he said last week.

"The truth is that I feel far more comfortable, because as a player I believe I have improved certain aspects of my game.

"It is difficult to play here with the same top spin, so I have to change. I have to change a lot of things."

With two straight set wins to this point, he can look forward to this week with some optimism despite a number of dangerous opponents still embedded in his side of the draw.

Former champion, Lleyton Hewitt, Serbian fourth seed, Novak Djokovic and Mikel Youzhny will all have intentions of making it to next weekend and, who knows with the weather, maybe into next week too.