As Serena and Clijsters have shown, champions are a breed above. Zvonareva had beaten Clijsters in their two previous meetings in 2010 but that didn’t matter in a pressure-packed Grand Slam final. Venus and Sharapova were once there, but they won’t win another Slam.

“We play tournaments every week and it’s our job,” Zvonareva said. “We are used to it, so that doesn’t matter. But it’s difficult for the fans. We see a lot of people walking around with umbrellas. We really appreciate them coming and trying to watch us play. They have been great all week, so supportive of all the players. We can only imagine how disappointing it has been for them.”

The development was that Montreal’s star power suddenly began to dip with all the pull-outs, and Lapierre came back to Ivanovic with the wildcard offer — which she promptly told him, in so many words, to stick up his ass.

Justine Henin has withdraw from the upcoming US summer hardcourt season due to an injured right elbow.

Andy Roddick goes down on an otherwise quiet Monday at Wimbledon.

Scheduled for Tuesday at Wimbledon are all four women’s quarterfinals in (8) Kim Clijsters vs. (21) Vera Zvonareva, (1) Serena Williams vs. (9) Na Li, Tsvetana Pironkova vs. (2) Venus Williams, and Petra Kvitova vs. (Q) Kaia Kanepi.

Sean Randall previews the Wimbledon fourth round.

“I have mixed feelings about that,” Williams said. “You know, I don’t think I should be out there. But in a way, I feel like, you know, with my popularity, it’s cool to see — when I was leaving, I stayed for a while, and I signed tons of autographs. A lot of these people can’t get into the Centre Court and stuff.”

“She’s been playing really well, won a tournament last week,” said Williams of Makarova, showing the gulf between the top players and the lower echelon. “I think the grass suits her game. She hits it low and has a good serve. You know, I was very happy to get off to a good start and then to close it out at the end.”

“They have strawberries on them, too,” Serena said in response to the question, or rather a statement, that her nails looked good. “If I would have thought about it, I would have put a strawberry instead of a heart. They’re hearts. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. I could have had a strawberry.”