Tennis / Wimbledon '94: Serving yoghurt, not aces: Martin Johnson hunts for clues to the identity of the likely women's finalists in the absence of tennis's leading lights

WHILE Steffi Graf was contemplating how to spend her prize-money of pounds 4,010 (probably her smallest pay-out since the tooth fairy last slipped a little something under her pillow) any number of women have been touted as likely successors to her Wimbledon throne. The only certainty is: it will not be one of ours.

The last two Britons have now blipped off the radar, which is marginally less of a shock than Graf's exit. Before the tournament, Ladbrokes could safely have added a couple of noughts to their quote of 2000-1 against a home win in the ladies' singles, and you can only prise 250-1 out of them if you think that little green men will land an alien craft on the Centre Court before the next millennium.

Most of the genuine contenders were making further progress yesterday, including the Argentinian glamour puss Gabriela Sabatini. She had to resume at one set-all against Austria's Judith Weisner, but as it turned out, Sabatini had a far harder struggle trying to reach the court than anything she encountered on it.

The crush around Court Five certainly made for a captive audience, and anyone who only wanted to watch the opening match was probably stuck there until chucking out time. It was quite possible for a spectator to have died on his feet at 12 noon, with no one noticing until there was room to topple over at close of play.

Sabatini has only once threatened to win Wimbledon, when she twice served for the match against Graf in 1991. Like many of the women players, she began so young that her change-over drinks bottle might well have had a teat on it, but she has never quite fulfilled her girlish promise. At 24 (a more sensible qualification age for the ladies veterans' event than the current one of 35) Sabatini may be past her sell-by date as a serious major tournament contender. She is still marketable enough to lend her name to perfume brands and hybrid roses, but despite a pair of shoulders that look as though they belong to an American football player, her serve rasps over the net like a handful of confetti.

This makes it difficult to pursue the customary grass court tactic of serve and volley, and although Sabatini no longer quite rushes the net in the manner of a bomb disposal officer approaching something ticking, her more natural habitat is back on the baseline.

The loss of Graf is said to have made the ladies' singles a good deal more interesting this year, although in the absence of the likes of Mary Pierce and Monica Seles, the competitors themselves look, on the face of it, a little dull. However, once you have flicked through their potted biographies in the offical women's tour handbook, you realise how fascinating they really are.

More accurately, perhaps, you realise what pitifully banal questions they are required to answer in the interests of marketing. For instance, few people watching a fancied outsider, Helena Sukova, going through yesterday, will have known that her opponent's favourite food is frozen yoghurt. Zina Garrison Jackson, a beaten finalist here in 1991, progressed at the expense of a girl who considers the footballer Marco van Basten the 'best athlete in any sport', which must make Marco very proud, and all the girls appear to own a pet dog, with the exception of Gigi Fernandez, who keeps pigs. One American girl who 'attends Willow Creek Community Church' enjoys 'Ben and Jerry's Health Bar Crunch Yoghurt'.

However, back to the serious business of picking a winner. After due consideration of all the form guides, the final will definitely be contested by two girls who own dogs, like music, read books, and have an unshakeable opinion on the world's greatest athlete.