Tennis: Smith's lift-off for limp Britain

Guy Hodgson reports on a moment of rare triumph for the domestic game

IT WAS hard to reconcile two images at Wimbledon. The first was Sam Smith coming into a press conference on crutches on Wednesday night, the second was her leaping round Court One yesterday celebrating the greatest win of her life. In her case a fall had come before pride.

Smith the British women's No 1, whose presence in the tournament had been jeopardised by her crashing to the floor with an ankle injury against Mariana Diaz-Oliva, defeated the eighth seed and 1994 champion, Conchita Martinez, 2-6 6-3 7-5. Her prize money already was a shock to her as much as anyone else.

"I can't even... I mean I can't imagine that," she gasped. "That's such a lot of money I haven't even thought about it." If she sounded like a lottery winner in a sense she was, because her fourth-round place means she has earned as much this week, pounds 25,120, as she almost made all of last year.

At the same time records fell like rain on Centre Court. Smith became the first British woman in the fourth round since 1985; the first to defeat a Grand Slam winner for 15 years; the first to defeat a seed at Wimbledon since 1990. Not bad for someone who had not won a singles match at the All England Club before this week.

"I think some of the draws I've had at Wimbledon have been incredibly tough," Smith said, trying to pin down reasons for the discrepancy in form. "I've made a good fist of them but haven't pulled through. This year I'm a much better tennis player."

The first thing you noticed about Smith yesterday was not her tennis but her striking similarity to other tennis players of note. From the neck up she could be Tim Henman's sister; from the left ankle down she could have been Greg Rusedski.

Rusedski was the most pertinent comparison because, like him, her appearance at Wimbledon had been put in jeopardy by a fall on greasy courts. We have had several limp British No 1s in our time but rarely have we had both the men's and women's limping.

Behind 4-1 overnight and with worries over Smith's fitness, the momentum was with Martinez when she quickly wrapped up the first set, the more so because the 26-year-old from Essex had slipped over in what appeared to be both a dangerous and symbolic act. Everything appeared to be crashing round her.

Martinez thought so too because when Smith double-faulted in the next game to go 15-40 down, the Spaniard allowed her mind to drift to the next opponent, France's Nathalie Tauziat. "I wasn't think about the moment," she said, "I was thinking about the future. You can't do that."

Meanwhile, Smith's mind-set had solidified round a meeting with Martinez at last year's US Open, a crushing 6-1, 6-0 defeat: "Before that match I'd been playing people ranked around the 100 mark and to suddenly meet someone in the top 10 was a shock. These last few weeks I've been playing people around 40, 50 whatever and it didn't seem as much of a jump.

"What people don't realise about Conchita is she puts an amazing amount of spin on the ball, so when it bounces it moves in the air. At the US Open I tried to hit through the spin and it flew everywhere. This time I tried to go with it and that made the difference."

This spin-doctoring allowed Smith to take the second set and although she was 4-2 down in the decider she refused to panic, broke back immediately, and took five of the next six games. Her poise as she served for the match was as admirable as the forehand volley that brought her victory was powerful.

Her first thought was to punch the air in delight, her second was to be overwhelmed with amnesia. Had Martinez said anything to her? "I don't know," she replied. "I was in shock at the end. When that volley went in I couldn't believe it. I didn't realise what was happening after that." Smith might have been excited.

While she was going where she has never been before, Chris Wilkinson was hitting a familiar barrier. Three times before he had got to the third round and gone no further and yesterday, on the same court which had witnessed Smith's success, he succumbed to Wayne Ferreira 6-2 4-6 6-3 6-1.

It was a retreat of spectacular proportions. At 3-1 up in the third set Wilkinson, from Southampton, thought he could glimpse the elusive fourth round but it proved to be an illusion as he lost 11 of the next 12 games.

"It was deflating," Wilkinson said, "but against someone like that it's always difficult because he returns brilliantly. Even if I'm a break up it's hard because my serve is not big enough to get cheap points."