Serena Williams

London: The difference between top players and also-rans is the uncanny way they’re able to recognise a crisis, and precisely what’s required to get out of it. Thus it was with Serena Williams Wednesday, which is why, trailing 1-4 and 15-30 to Alicia Molik, she buried her head in her hands, pulled off her earrings, and handed them to a ball girl.

Ordinarily, you’d have to think that this wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference to the course of events, but when you combine the size of Serena with a pair of earrings which must have appeared to her Australian opponent to have been hewn from Ayers Rock, merely putting them on must have required a gang of workmen and more scaffolding than they’ll need for the Centre Court roof.

There was, however, an element of good fortune in Serena’s making the discovery as to why her movement around the court left her in danger of being identified by the security police as an unattended package, and removed from the premises.

The left earring had actually fallen out, and when she realised that she was listing heavily to starboard, the other one had to go too. In the nick of time, really. While Maria Sharapova has been likened to a swan at this year’s Wimbledon, the way Serena gallumphs around the court puts you in mind of something slightly less balletic. Like a triceratops.

Once the earrings had gone, Serena found new levels of energy, and her comeback to a 7-6, 6-3 victory was launched with a ferocious forehand winner, accompanied by a noise so terrifying that it made Sharapova sound like Whispering Ted Lowe.