It was an on-off day for the tidy gathering of spectators for the second round of qualifying for the international women's tournament yesterday.
There's only so much checking out of the food and clothing stalls you can take in the rain breaks.
And when the clouds parted they
were hoping for further progress from New Zealand's solitary survivor, Auckland teenager Shona Lee.
Three of the four New Zealanders handed wildcards into the qualifying field of 32 were gone on Saturday, and Lee packed her racquets and joined them on the sideline yesterday.
After winning her opening match against Britain's top player, the 144-ranked Anne Keothavong, Lee should have done better when going down 6-2 6-2 to Austrian Yvonne Meusburger.
Of the other three, Auckland's Kairangi Vano at least took a set off 135-ranked Meusburger - who probably couldn't believe her good fortune in drawing back-to-back New Zealanders - but North Harbour's Diane Hollands and Canterbury's Ellen Barry scraped a mere five games between them.
After dropping the first nine points, a nervy Lee, ranked 634, then broke the Austrian's serve to level at 2-all in the first set.
She struck some nice strokes but suffered from a wonky radar with her ground strokes and struggled with her serve.
It was all over in an hour and Meusburger squares off against statuesque Russian Lioudmila Skavronskaia this morning for a place in the main draw.
There are four spots on offer from qualifying, plus one lucky loser from this morning's final who gets in courtesy of an injury to Frenchwoman Nathalie Dechy.
That player will face Russian Ekaterina Bychkova tomorrow.
Among those still alive are the top two seeds, Italian Virginie Razzano and 2001 champion American Meilen Tu. The third-seeded Pole, Marta Domachowska, was the most notable casualty yesterday.
