It happens to the greatest of them all - and last night it happened to mighty ‘Pistol’ Pete Sampras.
One minute there they are, honed and heroic, ready to march gloriously into the next round at Wimbledon to the applause of adoring crowds.
Then fate intervenes with a reminder that life is not quite like that.
Wimbledon has produced its share of shock results over the years and sure enough there will be more to come. It is part of the enduring fascination of the event.
There is something gruesomely compelling about watching a star’s psyche unravel along with his or her game in front of a battery of television cameras that bring every twitch, tear and tantrum into sharp focus in our living rooms.
Forget the roll of honour, this is the roll of horror as blood was spilled on the lawns of a leafy London suburb in some of the tournament’s biggest upsets.
**MEN **
Roger Taylor v Rod Laver
The only reason why Laver’s name is not at the top of the all-time list of Grand Slam tournament winners is that he was barred from them at the height of his powers after turning professional in 1963. The open era brought more titles, and when he faced Britain’s Roger Taylor in the fourth round in 1970 he had won 31 consecutive matches and was favourite to complete a Wimbledon hat-trick. National hero Taylor, advised by the press that he may as well stay at home, overwhelmed the champion 4-6 6-4 6-2 6-1 on a rising tide of patriotic fervour.
2 Charlie Pasarell v Manuel Santana
Pasarell holds a special place in Wimbledon folklore. In 1969, the big-hitting American took five hours and 12 minutes to lose against the legendary Pancho Gonzales - the longest match in the history of the championships. Gonzales survived seven match points to win 22-24 1-6 16-14 6-3 11-9. But Pasarell had already made his mark. Two years earlier, he opened the championships as the ritual sacrifice against title-holder and number one seed Manuel Santana of Spain. Santana, a clay-court expert with the brilliance to win on grass too, was vulnerable - and Pasarell dismissed him 10-8 6-3 2-6 8-6.
3 Peter Doohan v Boris Becker
‘Boom Boom Boris’ burst onto the scene with incandescent energy as Wimbledon’s youngest champion at the age of 17 in 1985. His flame burned with an intense heat for over a decade. He won the title again in 1986 - “My biggest achievement. Everyone questioned whether 1985 was a fluke. I felt the most pressure ever and played my best ever” - and arrived at the 1987 championships as favourite. He will not have had a sleepless night knowing Peter Doohan was waiting for him in the second round. But the unremarkable Australian played the match of his life to win 7-6 4-6 6-2 6-4. Becker shrugged his shoulders. “I lost a tennis match. Nobody died,” he said.
4 Richard Krajicek v Pete Sampras
Richard Krajicek was an upset waiting to happen. The big-serving, 6ft 5ins Dutchman had the right game and right build to be a winner on grass, but suffered a first-round knockout at Wimbledon in both 1994 and 1995 and was not seeded the following year. Some experts, John McEnroe included, still believed he could play a big part in the tournament and nothing came bigger than the quarter-final pounding he gave triple champion Pete Sampras in winning 7-5 7-6 6-4 on his way to the title. It was the shock of the tournament, eclipsing even Sir Cliff Richard’s impromptu concert as the rain poured down in the middle of the match.
5 Nick Brown v Goran Ivanisevic
Charismatic Croatian Goran Ivanisevic was one year away from reaching his first Wimbledon final, in which he lost a five-setter to Andre Agassi, when he came up against unheralded Briton Nick Brown in the second round of the 1991 tournament. Brown, a 29-year-old who had quit the game for five years and was two years into his comeback, should not have had a prayer against a man who fired cannonballs. But he won 4-6 6-3 7-6 6-3 in an upset that was hailed by the ATP’s own computer as the biggest shock since world rankings started 18 years earlier. Ivanisevic was seeded number 10, while Brown was the lowest-ranked player in the tournament at number 591.
6 Pete Sampras v Roger Federer
There were signs that the crown might finally be slipping from the head of seven-times champion Pete Sampras when little-known Briton Barry Cowan, ranked 265 in the world, dared to fight back from two sets down to level their second-round match before finally bowing out to the American, now 29. And, for only the second time in nine years, Pistol Pete finally misfired when he came up against Roger Federer, 10 years his junior, in the fourth round. The Swiss prodigy - in his first match on Centre Court - matched the mighty American stroke for stroke before holding his nerve and slumping to his knees after an amazing 7-6 (9-7) 5-7 6-4 6-7 (2/7) 7-5 success. But, after scotching rumours of his impending retirement, Sampras claimed: “There is no reason to panic. I plan on being back for many years to come.”
**WOMEN **
1 Billie-Jean Moffitt v Margaret Court
Looking back, it is strange that a victory for the most important female player in the history of tennis could be described as a shock, but that is what it was. Little Miss Moffitt had yet to blossom into the great Billie-Jean King when she came up against formidable top seed Margaret Court in the second round in 1962. Australian Court - later Margaret Smith - was a mighty athlete whose power, skill and stamina brought her an astonishing 24 career Grand Slam tournaments, three of them in this same year. After a first-round bye at Wimbledon she faced effervescent 18-year-old Moffitt, who won 1-6 6-3 7-5. The American later won the title six times - and the headline Ace King Queen was born.
2 Jennifer Capriati v Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova was 34 and had appeared in the last nine finals at Wimbledon when she faced a 15-year-old prodigy fresh off the US production line in the 1991 quarter-finals. The clock was ticking on the greatest female player the world has ever seen, but it was still a shock to see her humbled on Centre Court by a youngster who was two when her opponent first took the title. Jennifer Capriati won 6-4 7-5 to become the youngest player - at 15 years and 96 days - to reach the semi-finals since Lottie Dod over a century earlier. “I’m not giving up. I still feel I have some really good tennis in me,” said Navratilova. But the queen had relinquished her crown for good.
3 Lori McNeil v Steffi Graf
No defending women’s champion had ever been beaten in the first round at Wimbledon and that perfect record was hardly likely to be broken by Steffi Graf in 1994. The athletic German was virtually unbeatable on grass and had won five of the previous six Wimbledon championships. Only once in her previous 138 tournaments had Graf failed to get beyond the first round - in the 1992 Virginia Slims event. Her opponent that day? Lori McNeil. On a cold, blustery evening with squalls of rain interrupting play, the American did it again, raising her game to win 7-5 7-6 as the champion failed to get into her rhythm.
4 Jelena Dokic v Martina Hingis
The mother of all shocks as 1999 top seed and world number one Martina Hingis was blown away by a 16-year-old qualifier ranked number 129. The Court One crowd watched in stunned disbelief as Jelena Dokic took 54 minutes to humiliate Hingis 6-2 6-0, dumping her out in the first round. Only two weeks earlier, Hingis had been jeered for her tantrums in the French Open final, and at Wimbledon a familiar face in the crowd was missing for the first time - that of her mother, who had gone home to Switzerland. It was the wrong opponent at the wrong time as fleet-footed Dokic confirmed her status as a future star by playing uninhibited tennis of control and accuracy to overwhelm her unhappy opponent.
5 Virginia Ruano Pascal v Martina Hingis
As in 1999, Hingis capitulated against someone she was expected to blow away, producing some appalling errors on the way. The writing was on the wall as Hingis lost the first set 6-4 to the Spaniard, ranked 83 in the world. And memories of her nightmare of two years ago were in the minds of spectators on Court One as she fell 3-0 behind in the second set. Despite breaking her opponent, Hingis was immediately broken back - and the writing was on the wall and the top seed became a Swiss miss again, going down 6-2 in the second.