Yes, there's something about Mary. Pierce that is. Having come from the French Open confident and bristling with form, we thought that the old fidgety, self-aware, nervous wreck had vanished and been replaced by a new player who had found love and god. No doubt did she.

The unseeded Magui Serna had a different view and knocked the third seed for six in the second round for perhaps the biggest shock result in the entire women's draw. It took a 17-year-old Serb out of Australia, Jelena Dokic, to tame the Spanish teenager in the quarter-finals, with Pierce hoping that the final Grand Slam of the year, the US Open, will be kinder.