Paul Lewis: Slams are grand for serving up shocks

A friend once managed to procure Wimbledon tickets and treated me to the full-works Wimbledon - seats on centre court and passes to the Pavilion, where we hobbed with the nobs and indulged in the famed strawberries and cream and bottles of champagne.

The score read something like champagne 40-strawberries 15 and I'd have to say the service game was terrific. Just hold your hand up and more champagne arrived. And the second serve was just as good as the first.

But after all that champagne remedial action was required and I found myself in the gents loo, standing next to a man who either was, or was dressed as, a clergyman. Who must have been a Star Wars fan as he was indulging in a pastime best described as Han Solo. Who was ever so pleased that I'd noticed.

Quite why he chose to do this standing at a urinal and why detection was desirable remains a mystery, thankfully. And if he was a vicar, oh, never mind... let's leave him there, working on his backhand.

I mention this as a roundabout method of describing the sheer unpredictability of Grand Slam tennis. Wimbledon is always a tournament for the unexpected and the epic - both inside and outside the Pavilion.

The stunning upset, the champion of whom no one had heard (Boris Becker), the classic finals (Borg vs McEnroe, 1980), Wimbledon abounds in such drama. So, too, the US Open, which kicks off tomorrow.

Remember 10 years ago, when Pete Sampras dethroned defending champion Andre Agassi in a match which signalled a firm shift in the power rankings of world tennis? Sampras, as a 19-year-old, won his first US Open beating Agassi in 1990 but it was his win five years later that really took him to the top of the tennis tree.

Agassi had the last laugh, of course, because he somehow maintained a magnificent career which is expected to end after this US Open, and then only because his back has worsened to a state where he cannot continue without the needle.

That day in 1995 saw the first - and I think the only - time that four men ranked as world No 1 during the year played off in the US Open semifinals: Sampras vs Agassi, Jim Courier vs Becker.

But not this year, I fear. There's only one bloke who's ranked as No 1 this year and for every year foreseeable, barring injury or kidnapping by aliens. Roger Federer so dominates men's tennis that spending time looking for someone who can beat him is about as fruitful as dressing up as a vicar and, well, you get the picture.

Maybe young Spaniard Rafael Nadal will be his nemesis, although perhaps not yet. And those who reckon big-hitting Andy Roddick could power-play his way to a win would have reached nervously for their betting slip when Federer - after six weeks' break from tennis - beat Roddick in a warm-up tournament. Federer looked like he was doing nothing more taxing than milking the cow he was given by a grateful Swiss nation (and which he promptly named Juliette because, it's said, of a former girlfriend with whom he'd broken up).

It's in the women's event that the real drama might unfold. Lindsay Davenport, the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, and Amelie Mauresmo will do battle with the Belgians, Justin Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, and a ruckus of Russians, headed by world No 1 and latest dreamboat Maria Sharapova but also including Svetlana Kuznetsova and Anastasia Myskina.

Any one of the above could win this title and the women's clash is aided and abetted by the increasing bitchiness apparent in women's tennis since Sharapova's recent ascent to top spot. Her fellow Russians have sniffed that Sharapova, a long-time resident of Florida, is more American than Russian. Sharapova-ites say they are just jealous because they haven't secured the same financial success as the gorgeous Sharapova even when they won Grand Slam events. Serena Williams, who beat her to to win the Australian Open this year, witheringly said of Sharapova: "There are people with a better game."

This has happened before, of course, with Anna Kournikova - the eye-candy who made it big in endorsements by waggling her tush but who achieved little on court. She is best remembered (how quickly they burn out these days) for a computer virus named after her and her hissing dismissal of a would-be suitor: "You couldn't afford me."

It's wondrous to reflect how the land of Stalin has thrown up these rapacious little capitalists. All this ponytail tossing and character assassination adds an edge to the on-court struggles. It's kind of like Desperate Housewives with racquets and black people.

Sharapova, with her bullet serve and blazing backhand, might be favourite but Serena - especially if she has her mind on tennis and not ridiculous underwear - might be the one to beat.

And a dark horse? The Belgian, Clijsters, who overran an admittedly tired Henin-Hardenne to win a warm-up tournament and who is closing on her best after injury.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY