When the Centre Court rues the arrival of new heroines
^{The Daily Telegraph (United Kingdom) - Monday June 28, 1999 - by Andrew Baker}

Wimbledon has a way of making instant heroes or, more pertinently this year, heroines. When a long-standing crowd favourite or titan of the world game is humbled by an unknown on the show court, the formerly obscure player becomes the darling of the crowd for their next match.

This is how JELENA DOKIC went from promising Aussie teen to international celebrity in an hour and a bit. Farewell Martina Hingis, and hello Jelena-mania.

A similar transformation awaited Mirjana Lucic, conquerer of Monica Seles. What might have been the week of Monica and Martina may instead become a carnival of the 'Ic' girls.

All good fun for the fans, who have been having a terrific time working out how to chant the names of their new heroines. "C'mon Mariella" has for some reason become the accepted greeting for Lucic, while Dokic has become stoically used to the cries of "C'mon Jelly".

But there is a drawback. Every upset, by definition, means the departure of a gifted player from the tournament and subsequent games may have novelty value but they can also prove, in tennis terms, to be total stinkers.

So there are going to be a few disappointed holders of show-court tickets this week. While the women's singles cannot be described as a star-free zone while Steffi Graf, Mary Pierce, Venus Williams, Jana Novotna and Ann Kornikova remain, there will undoubtedly be one or two obscure names in the quarter-final line-up.

Tamarine Tanasugarn, for instance, who next faces the booming backhand and out-of-nowhere drop shots of Lucic; Alexandra Stevenson, who is yet to get around to turning professional, or her fourth round opponent Lisa Raymond, one of the ever-swelling ranks of million-dollar journeywomen. Even among the remaining seeds there are names that fail to set the pulse racing. Dominique Van Roost, say, who is seeded 14 and a big star in her native Belgium, but who could hardly cause a flutter in the bus queue in SW19.

It could be that the winner will come neither from the list of charismatic stars or limelit newcomers. Lindsay Davenport has been making steady and unobtrusive progress through the draw, honing her huge serve and enjoying the privacy that is the dividend of her appearance rather than her talent.

"I don't do anything overly exciting" she said last week. "I don't have problems with my family or anything like that, and I'd rather have it like that. I think my life is pretty great. It's pretty calm." With such peace of mind, Davenport has her best chance yet of a Wimbledon title.

This is not to deride the achievements of Dokic, Lucic and Co, but anyone who witnessed Dokic's second-round match against Katrina Studenikova or her third-round encounter with Ann Kremer will not be queueing overnight for another chance to see her in action.

The match against Kremer, the pride of Luxembourg, on Centre Court on Saturday is a strong contender for the crummiest match in Centre Court history. It would have been a comedy of errors if only it had been funny. The crowd, initially enthusiastically behind the Little Aussie Battler, rapidly became confused as both players proved incapable of holding serve. Hold it? They could barely lay a finger on it, and so the first set lurched agonisingly towards a tie-break.

This frenzied exchange of howlers would undoubtedly become a best-seller if it were committed to video and marketed in tennis coaching circles as "How not to play the pressure points". Kremer won it, with eight points to Dokic's six.

You couldn't help wishing that the umpire would call both girls together for a pep-talk, or a reminder of the basics of the game, or simply to bash their heads together. The footballers and ex-footballers who had been invited to the Royal Box re-entered the court after tea and shortly thereafter developed a mass craving for a second helping of cucumber sandwiches. Less-fortunate spectators without a dining room to retire to were considering following the example set by Mr. Dokic in Birmingham and throwing themselves in front of the traffic on Church Road.

Tie-breaks sometimes settle players' nerves, and subsequent sets are usually better than nervous openers. Not so on this occasion. Dokic won the second set and, eventually the match, to a scattering of applause that mingled approbation, sympathy and above all relief.

Dokic's achievement in progressing so far is considerable; her potential, as she demonstrated against Hingis, immense. Let us hope that both she and Pierce are feeling in the grove when they step on to Court No 2 this afternoon. Even the graveyard does not deserve a game as deadly as Saturday's.

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