YOU COULD see by the calm of Serena Williams' face as she hopped up and down on Centre Court and went through some routine serve motions that Amelie Mauresmo was hers for the taking. A set and 3-0 down in the second set, Mauresmo had called the trainer, who was busying herself taping wads of bandage around the ailing French thigh.
The breeze was picking up and the clouds had gathered, all of them around the head of the 2006 champion, and Williams had sniffed an easy victory that would send her into the second week of the tournament.
On the face of it yesterday's meeting was a tasty fixture. Williams, twice a Wimbledon champion against the 28-year-old Mauresmo, who was making a return after struggling with injury for the first part of the season. But yesterday the chasm in scoring only opened when it was apparent Mauresmo was struggling.
The first set Williams had taken on a tiebreak as both players dropped two service games before the American claimed it narrowly. But even then the thigh had become a problem.
"Sometimes I was maybe not 100 per cent on movement," said Mauresmo. "Then I really started to feel it on the set point, actually the last point of the tiebreak. I'm not going to talk about the second set".
Williams is now pitched against American Bethanie Mattek, who also shares the indulgence of unusual clothing. But thoughts, however premature, have also turned to the prospect of another all Williams final. Older sister Venus plays today against Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez in the lower half of the draw, where Jelena Jankovic remains the top seed, while Serena's path as been somewhat cleared by the shock defeat of Anna Ivanovic.
"That would be an ultimate goal," said Serena warming to the possibility that the two would meet for a second time in the final.
"Right now I'm just taking my next match, Bethanie Mattek, who is going to be pumped to be this far. She's been playing better tennis and better tennis."
Williams was more excercised by the comments of fellow American player Justin Gimelstob, who reputedly called Anna Kournikova a bitch, said that Czech player Nicole Vaidisova was "very well developed", and called another player a "sex pot".
"I think that those comments are probably not necessary," said the Jehovah's Witness Williams.
"And being pro women's rights I just think we've come farther than to be referred to you know, I don't cuss. I mean unless you really know these people, you talk to these people, you never know what people go through. You know it is totally uncalled for. It is not good to say those things about people."
Vaidisova went through to the fourth round when she beat Australian Casey Dellacqua and now meets Russian eighth seed Anna Chakvetadze on Monday.
Now that Ivanovic is out at the top half of the draw, it has opened up considerably and a win next round could easily launch a player into the semi-finals.
