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Yet another wet day at Wimbers, but the players are used to it. They don’t like it, but they expect it and have no choice but to accept it. And it isn’t just Wimbledon that has rain, of course. I have been at tournaments ever since late April, and it has rained at every single one. I wasn’t in Rome for the women’s week, though, and that was dry, so perhaps I’m to blame.

“I think it's part of the tennis, and you have to be ready for many things,” said Tomas Berdych after completing a held-over match against Hung-Taik Lee. “You have to be ready if it starts to rain between the match or, I don't know, if you're playing somebody where it's too loud or something. You just have to be ready for that. I think the advantage is just stay ready and not be like, you know, rain again or something. Just be positive.”

This year, though, has been particularly frustrating, because there have been frequent showers rather than hours of steady rain. As Patty Schnyder pointed out, when it’s steady rain you can ‘stand down’ your body and relax a little. With showers, you have to constantly be ready to go back on court.

Tamira Paszek only just managed to win against Elena Dementieva before the rain came.

“I mean, what to do? It starts drizzling. You're serving 5-3 in the third set. Keep focused and try to play your game. It was 30-Love, so I just hoped that we could finish.”

They did, and the kid, the 16-year old, won. You might not be familiar with her yet, but keep an eye out and, if you get the opportunity, watch her. She won the first set from Justine Henin in Dubai, and held a break point to serve for the match. And she took a set from Maria Sharapova in Birmingham. She reached the Wimbledon junior final in 2005, and loves being in London, SW19.

“The grass suits my game, and the whole atmosphere here in Wimbledon, it's so special. The strawberries with cream, playing all in white, the grass courts, covering and uncovering the courts, rain delays, rain delays. Just everything is so special. I think you need to enjoy every moment.”

Contrast her comments to those of Mister Misery, Nikolay Davydenko. "Wimbledon is the world's most boring tournament," Davydenko told the Sovietsky Sport newspaper. "There's hardly anything to do apart from tennis. You constantly find yourself yawning. There's no entertainment here. We're staying in the city centre, so it's a bit better. If we rented a house near Wimbledon, it would have been a total bore. There's absolutely nothing to do besides tennis." This is the same player that was in trouble in Sydney for saying the tournament was unimportant, and in Halle for saying his coach had told him to just go there and treat it as a vacation. It was merely Wimbledon’s turn to get the thumbs down from someone who apparently hates what he’s doing but can’t think of any other way to earn millions a year. Tough for him, really.

Wimbledon, naturally, has been affected by the terrorism alert now in place in Britain. Players are no longer transported right to the door, but must be dropped off in a car park across the road. Concrete barriers have been installed at the gates to prevent any socially-confused people driving petrol and gas-laden vehicles into the All England Club building. Despite the apparent increased security, two young men managed to walk into the media centre unchallenged, and onto a balcony used by players and celebrities. The problem is, and this is what those with evil intent rely on, is that standing by a door looking at people’s passes is the most boring job on the planet and those entrusted with the job simply stop paying attention.

But if you believe Venus Williams, she wasn’t aware of any terrorism threat. She was reading a book.

“I just do not watch a lot of TV at all,” she said after recovering from 3-5 in the third to beat Akiko Morigami. “I tend to read more books and listen to music, so I didn't really hear about it until ... I just don't turn on the TV. I was actually learning a programme called GarageBand (that appears to be a software application for creating music or podcasts). So I'm sitting there reading the book, learning how to do things. After that, then I read whatever I might be reading, a thriller, science fiction. I just like to be busy. I have like these over-achievement issues. I always have to be achieving something somewhere. It doesn't leave a lot of time for TV. I have to be getting to the next level.”