Tearful exit for Serena as Venus skips on

TENNIS: In previous championships it would have been construed as a shock result. This year Serena Williams arrived on to an outside court shortly after reigning champion Maria Sharapova had played her way into the second week with plenty of grunts and groans but without having to apply serious effort. In the inky light all that was on show was the frustration and fear of a player totally lost in her efforts to find the game with which she once dominated the world.

There was a time when the Williams sisters generated the heat and shaped views around Centre Court when other players discussed what they must do to halt the inevitable charge of the sisters' power game. Little did they know they would simply have to wait.

While elder sister Venus came through a tough match against Daniela Hantuchova, Serena, the player who was feted to be the dominant force in tennis for a decade, was unceremoniously dumped from the competition by Jill Craybas, a 30-year-old American journeywoman ranked at 85 in the world.

Today another big name will join Williams when the first meeting of two seeded players, Lindsay Davenport and Kim Clijsters, takes place on Centre Court.

While Williams arrived at the tournament out of shape and obviously out of kilter, Clijsters has been something of the in-form player. Sleek where Williams was carrying weight, fast where Williams was off the pace, and hitting her shots where Williams was misfiring, Clijsters is capable of upsetting the world number one.

Davenport more than the 23-year-old will view this match as fraught with difficulty. The Belgian's documented battle with a career-threatening wrist injury and more recently a knee problem brought her to Wimbledon as the 15th seed.

To that extent she was largely overlooked as a potential champion, but her matches have shown she is coming close to the level that has taken her to three Grand Slam finals.

At 29, Davenport is enjoying the final embers of a fading career and is number one largely thanks to playing enough tournaments to pick up computer points.

She has not been winning - her last major victory was in Australia in 2000 - but a win today against Clijsters would make her favourite to make a run for this title.

Grass suits Davenport's game, but as the serve-and-volley players have found out this year, the slower surface has allowed back-court players make a bigger impression. A slightly higher bounce and a fraction more reaction time on the serves should reward the younger player.

"Monday's going to be a lot different story. Kim will get more balls back and will really press me a lot more than I've been pressed so far," said Davenport.

It must be said, though, that Davenport swept past Dinara Safina, the 19-year-old sister of Marat Safin, 6-2, 6-1, with the minimum of fuss, less of a contest even than Sharapova's high-volume 6-2, 6-4 win over Katerina Srebotnik.

Venus Williams, who said "I felt good, though I feel I can pick it up" after beating Hantuchova 7-5, 6-3, may feel that swift revenge is called for when she faces Craybas today on the same court where her baby sister was defeated.

Typically Williams was a slow starter and took 47 minutes to claim the first set on Saturday. Both players serving well, Williams finally came back from 0-40 down in the 11th game to hit a forehand winner for the set.

The Slovakian's serve then fell to pieces, Venus's celebratory skipping dance in contrast to Serena's tears.

"I didn't do anything right. I would have been better off staying at home," said younger sister Serena before departing. "I feel horrible. The words I would choose to use would be all foul so I won't choose to use any of them."

Unless there is a radical change of attitude and a temporary halt to her forays into film and fashion design, she may have to get used to that feeling.