Serena's soap opera slips from top ratings

Life is never dull when Serena Williams is around, and so it proved during her 7-6, 6-3 second-round defeat of the Australian Alicia Molik on Court One yesterday, not least because she began the match wearing a pair of earrings that Coronation Street's Bet Lynch would have rejected for being just a little too showy. Some of the slimmer players in the women's competition - Justine Henin, for example - could have deployed them as hula hoops.

A few games into the first set, one of the earrings fell off - the only surprise was that it did not make more of a clang - and Williams handed both of them to a ballgirl, who must have been tempted to make a quick getaway and find a fence; it is safe to say that they were not purchased from Woolworths. By then, Williams was a break down, with Molik giving as good as she got in the big serve and thunderous groundstroke department.

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A tall, broad-shouldered girl, who two years ago was ranked as high as No 8 in the world, she is one of the few women here who merits the adjective "Amazonian" so often applied to her opponent.

For a while it looked as though Williams might experience a scare similar to that suffered by her sister, Venus, the day before. Not only would her earrings have been rejected by Bet Lynch, so would her forehand.

Her length was awry and too many shots found the net. To say that she looked disgusted with herself would be an understatement; hardly anyone at these championships has body language as expressive as the younger Williams sister. At 1-4 down in the first set she walked to the chair like an octogenarian carrying two heavy shopping bags. The words "disconsolate trudge" do not even begin to describe it.

Still, she showed characteristic determination in overcoming the deficit and even had a set point at 6-5 before winning in a tie-break. She lagged 2-4 in the tie-break but then won five points on the trot and closed out the set with a 121mph ace, the fastest serve of the match. Nobody ever said that Serena lacks a sense of occasion. Or urgency.

The No 7 seed screamed "C'mon!" practically while the ball was still airborne, slapping her thigh in a manner less reminiscent of a tennis player than Anita Harris in Babes In The Wood at the New Wimbledon Theatre.

The 2002 and 2003 champion then served out the first game of the second set to love, with Molik holding on to her serve only after five deuces and two break-points. The writing appeared to be on the wall in fluorescent pink.

However, the 26-year-old from Melbourne surprised everyone by breaking the Williams serve in the third game: good golly Miss Molik.

"Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy, oy, oy," rose the cry from a group of female Antipodeans in the crowd, but their excitement was short-lived. Williams broke back immediately and this time it seemed clear that she would tolerate no more pesky breaks of her serve. Nor did she.

Moreover, she began to show us glimpses of her formidable best, occasionally dropping to one knee either to drive a backhand or to feather a drop shot. She hits the tennis ball rather like Kevin Pietersen hits a cricket ball, improvising shots that are not in the textbook, or at least not in a tennis textbook.

The match ended curiously, with the umpire inviting Molik to challenge a shot that had been called out, a call unheard by both players, who continued playing, only for the challenge to be overruled by Hawk-Eye.

"It was weird," Williams said afterwards. Her watching father, Richard, had another word for it altogether.

Meanwhile, Williams is looking forward to a family affair in the doubles. "She [Venus] is the best," Serena said. "All she does is serve, and I just stand there. Sometimes I don't even move; she plays all the points. My favourite word is 'yours'."

She expressed the hope that a good run in the doubles would improve her singles play. Something will have to.