Beautiful stranger to victory

They are saying now that Anna Kournikova is too beautiful for her own good. Too much royal arrogance and stately poise, too little sweat and bruised knees. The pink hair clips have thankfully gone, but what has replaced them?

Today will tell how far the young Russian has strutted from the front of glamour magazines to Grand Slam reality. Opponent Venus Williams, who has beaten her twice in their only two outings, the last time 6-2, 6-2 earlier this year on clay in Italy, provides a match which will be a watershed for Kournikova.

The 17th seed, who now admits to being under pressure to earn a tennis reputation, has had to defend her ability this week after a trouble-free move into the fourth round.

"Everyone who has won a tournament started playing in the smaller ones. I played in only two small events before my ranking was high enough to play in the bigger ones, and of course they are tough to win," she said.

It is an additional pressure for Kournikova to play for her reputation against the sixth seed who polished off Sarah Pitkowski 6-1, 6-1 in her last match and has probably the heaviest serve of any player left in the women's competition.

Kournikova is not known as a great returner or a great server, nor in fact a great baseliner. Excepting a seismic tremor Kournikova's adornment may come to an end.

On Court Two, the young 16year-old Jelena Dokic faces Mary Pierce and we all know who the crowd will cheer. It is a meeting of the daughters of the so-called "fathers from hell". Pierce is off the creatine, but that won't soften up Court Two, while Dokic continues to be the charming scrapper.

But Pierce, seeded nine, has dropped only 12 games in three matches with Dokic having to go to three sets twice, including her last tangle with Anne Kramer where she went a set down before finishing off a match that rarely roared.

"I have come from qualifying, come from nowhere and I am definitely going out there against Pierce like I did against Hingis and hopefully I will play that well again," said Dokic.

Steffi Graf has further endeared herself by teaming up with John McEnroe in the mixed doubles, a move that has raised the affection which the crowd feels for her to unprecedented levels. The two laughed their way through their first match with Graf obviously taking McEnroe's advice to mellow out. Age does that.

Graf's experience should express itself against qualifier Kim Clijsters, who along with American Alexandra Stevenson and Dokic, are the only three qualifiers remaining. It their first meeting, one the imperious German will want to win to set up a meeting with Kournikova or Williams in the quarter-finals and, of course, increase her prospects of an eighth title.

Defending champion Jana Novotna and the 1998 US Open champion Lindsay Davenport are in action, against Nathalie Dechy from France and Austria's Barbara Schett respectively. Not much talk of Davenport - yet.

"This is the best I've felt on grass in my six or seven years of coming here," says the 6ft 2in woman from Newport Beach, California, rather ominously.

"I don't think it hurts at all not getting the attention. To be able to go through unnoticed - I like that. The players obviously know I'm a threat even if they don't read about me in the papers. It's great. You don't have to do all that off-court media stuff," she says.

Novotna too has tried to steer clear of too much showboating in the media and in Dechy faces a player who she has beaten twice before, once significantly 6-2, 6-2 at Eastbourne on the grass last year. The most natural grass-court player remaining, Novotna, like Graf, Davenport, Williams, Pierce and Nathalie Tauziat, has not been over-extended in any of her matches thus far.

With nine of the original 17 seeds still in the competition, the committee will be pleased with their crystal ball-gazing while in the men's draw, 11 seeds compete for a quarter-final berth from 16 starters. In the next two days, tears will flow and a minimum of six seeds will go.