Brandi is taken but Dokic stays cold

The 17-year-old Australian Jelena Dokic defied her Grand Slam form and the seeding committee to battle her way into her second Wimbledon quarter-final against Kristina Brandi (6-1, 6-3). She bore it with all the joy of a grieving widow.

Maybe her teenage spirits would have been lighter had she seen the serial male streaker who somersaulted across the outside court where Anna Kournikova and Natasha Zvereva were playing doubles. The ladies, who were seated at the time, demurely pulled the towels over their faces. The logo painted on his chest which said "only the balls should bounce" was crude but an alternative to ever tightening nerves.

It is the second time Dokic has muscled in on week two action and she now stands on the brink of a Wimbledon semi-final without meeting a seed. To say it was unforseen is like believing her father Damir will be invited to become a member of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

Having played six Grand Slam events, last year's Wimbledon run was by far her most prosperous until now. In Paris she lost in the round involving 64 players. In Australia earlier this year she departed in front of a home crowd in the first round, and at last year's US Open she suffered a similar fate.

Dokic, however, has been carving out an off-court name for herself without the direct help of her father. In this year's Australian Open, when she prematurely departed to Rita Kuti Kis, she ended up souring a significant portion of the locker room.

After that match, Dokic disappeared for four hours before turning up for a press conference, having already been fined, to explain she had been to church. Reading from a scripted speech she then launched an attack on her opponent. Kuti Kis, she declared, was someone "who was probably never a player and I guess never will be."

True or not, it sounded premeditated and spiteful falling from the mouth of an adolescent. Having sacked her coach Tony Roche just before the Championships, preferring to work with her father full time, Dokic remains engaging on court and the crowds have been eating from her hand.

She is forever the fairytale story with an ogre in the backround. Her youth and vitality, combined with a nerveless game which is refreshingly inconsiderate of bigger names, now brings her to Spain's Magui Serna, the 49th ranked player in the world.

She is all that separates Dokic from a semi-final place against either Lindsay Davenport or Monica Seles. "Yeh, I really think this is (an irresistible opportunity). There have been a few holes in the draw. I feel the next match is my opportunity. If I play like I have been and stay confident, I can get to the semis."

Because of her age Dokic is restricted to the number of tournaments she is allowed to play each year. No such consideration for Jennifer Capriati, who departed to reigning champion Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 6-3. Davenport produced the best set of her tournament so far in the second, arresting Capriati's hopes of her first quarter-final since 1993.

When she was 14 years old, Capriati became the youngest Grand Slam semi-finalist in tennis history at Roland Garros in 1990 and the youngest seed in Grand Slam history two weeks later at Wimbledon, until problems in her later teenage years put her career into a spiral.

Davenport now moves through to meet Monica Seles in a quarterfinal draw which contains five American players. Venus Williams was the first of her family past the tape with Serena looking even more impressive in her 6-1, 6-1 rout of Tamarine Tanasugarn. Serena knows no other way. She has dropped three games only once so far in a blizzard of two set matches.

The fifth American, Lisa Raymond, who she meets next, is not expected to upset that chillingly ruthless streak. With Australian Dokic and Spain's Serna through, it leaves only Switzerland's Hingis at the top of the draw. Breezy as always when she's winning, Hingis too has yet to drop a set.

The number one seed faces Venus Williams in the second of the "grand stand" quarter-finals, the other being Seles and Davenport. Williams has won the last two head to heads but neither match was played on grass. Their overall record is 3-3.

"The main thing is to concentrate on what you are doing, not your opponent," said Williams. "She gets quite a few balls back, plays consistently. Usually you hit yourself out of the match and make quite a few mistakes." And the streaker? Kournikova and Zvereva, equally as humourless as Dokic, never saw a thing. Why? They were "too professional" to be distracted.