Williams wins but storm still on horizon

Storm clouds and thunder on Centre Court – perfect weather for a girl with a new raincoat. Serena Williams had brought hers along again but all the most expensive double-breasted tailoring cannot protect against the clouds in a player's head.

Dark thoughts rumbled away in Williams' mind as she struggled towards a 7-6, 6-1 victory against Amélie Mauresmo, the winner here two years ago though a woman well on the margins now. There was a measure of what was going on up there in the American's screams. They were there from the start, after she had discarded the coat – which looks a ridiculous garment in which to warm up – and they were at full pitch in the first-set tie-break into which the match eventually limped.

Williams just about prevailed in that and Mauresmo was finished after that reverse. The departure from the draw within 48 hours of Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic and the 11th-seeded Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli, whom Williams had been due to meet next, will cheer her but she will need to lift her game.

For a match which pitched the 2002 and 2003 winner against the champion of 2006, this was a curiously muted occasion. Though Mauresmo, an individual of such promise when she became the first Frenchwoman to lift the singles title in the Open era, showed glimpses of her old craft – an exquisite passing shot past Williams' backhand in the first game of the second set showed it – there are doubts about whether she can make it back to her best now.

"I will see how the leg is and then I'll really see what's gong to happen," Mauresmo said, "how long I will have to take care of this before I can practice again."

Would she be back in SW19 next year? "Yeah, I think so," she said, unconvincingly.

Bartoli was unable to recreate her heroics of 12 months ago, when she beat Justine Henin, the then world No 1, in the semi-finals before losing to Venus Williams in the final. The Frenchwoman was beaten 6-4, 6-1 by Bethanie Mattek of the United States. Bartoli had arrived at the All England Club in poor form, troubled by a wrist injury. At 4-5 in the first set she was in more trouble and took a medical time-out for treatment to a shoulder problem. It hardly brought about an improvement as the world No 10 lost seven of the last eight games.

Elsewhere, David Felgate could take satisfaction from Nicole Vaidisova's progress to the fourth round, which was completed yesterday with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Australian Casey Dellacqua, some people's tip for an upset after overcoming the Czech twice on the hard courts already this year.

Vaidisova, who has been working with Felgate after Nick Bollettieri introduced them, is one of the many women to whom the ATP board member Justin Gimelstob has turned his attentions in his eye-watering analysis of the women's game. "A well-developed young lady and I'm not talking about her backhand" was his prognosis.

The world No 22, cheered by her progress after a dire year on the clay courts, was surprisingly forgiving.

"He's a very nice guy. I think it's just you say something and you don't mean it," she said.

Vaidisova found herself in a blinding spotlight when her prodigious talent first revealed itself as she became the sixth-youngest Women's Tour winner in history at the age of 15; losing the media attention during her slip from world No 7 to 22 has helped.

"If you're a young player coming up you have so much pressure to do well. But [now] I just do my own thing." These were the words of the 19-year-old who now meets the No 8 seed, Anna Chakvetadze.

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