The women’s quarterfinal matches played themselves out today at Wimbledon, with the top four seeds making it through. Amelie Mauresmo, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Maria Sharapova. Cause for jubilation in some quarters I suppose, but overall it felt rather ho-hum. Is it because I feel tired of seeing the same women get to the late rounds all the time? Roger and Rafa do the same, but I look forward more to their matches. I like their games and I like both guys. I can’t say that about the women in their performances today. They are a hard bunch to root for.

Amelie Mauresmo seems headed back into her mentally fragile state, and her game feels too capable of heading south at any moment in a match. Even though she did a lot of things right today in her match against Anastasia Myskina. Like serving and volleying and moving forward when she could. But doing that over a period of time successfully is still hard for her, so she dropped the middle set to Myskina before winning the match in three. She is hard to get behind right now, in spite of the Number One ranking.

Justine Henin-Hardenne has the most wonderful game on the women’s side, but she’s a hard pill to swallow in her personality, so she’s difficult to root for. But she still wins huge points from me for her focus. A Gemini who can focus can be a thing of beauty.

Kim Clijsters talks about retirement so much that it feels like she’s already halfway out the door, so, I’m already halfway out the door. Scratch her off the Deserving List.

And Maria Sharapova is just too much of a screaming banshee. Besides, she’s got that father in tow. Points off for that.

So, with aggravating personalities to go with rather uninspiring tennis, the matches today were just not that compelling. I found myself switching the channel to cheer the Italians in their effort to knock out the Germans in World Cup. In so doing I missed the highlight, apparently, of the Sharapova-Dementieva match. Thank God for the streaker. A noble Dutchman who danced and cartwheeled his way near Maria was promptly red-carded and hustled off the turf. It’s true what they say, tennis is an international thing now.

Ten years ago here at Wimbledon, Todd Martin and Malavai Washington got treated to a girl streaker rushing out before their match. I’ve noticed that men tend to look at these events. Women look away. Todd grinned broadly and Malavai offered her some sympathy moves. But today Maria and Elena appeared too much on their best behavior. There is so much earnestness in the women’s game now that sometimes it feels appalling. Elena made a little smile, but seemed not to really care. Maria looked away. Later in her press conference she said she didn’t want to know about “his details.” Darling, it’s the details that count, didn’t they tell you? Apparently not.

“Hey, you guys wanted some entertainment during a women’s match, you got some,” groused The Maria.

Unfortunately it was the only entertainment. Otherwise this match was a shriekfest in the audio department, and an eyesore in the visuals (that Dementieva serve again). For a moment or two John McEnroe sounded like he was going to burst into tears over that serve. Maybe it was that serve that has my teeth on edge. Part of me almost feels like Dementieva should be banned from tennis until she gets that serve going. It’s unfathomable how she could get so far in the game with that serve, and the fact that she has does not compliment the women’s field overall. Apparently she’s even been coached a bit by Richard Kracijek, who certainly knew a few things about serving well in his time. His verdict: it’s more mental than physical. Well, yeah. So, look forward to Dementieva getting (nearly) into another semifinal, or quarter, where all her solid ground game goes for naught. Because of that gruesome serve of hers. Has she tried hypnosis?

If there was anyone who played an interesting game out there today, it was the French qualifier, Severine Bremond. A sweet and lovely name for a 26-year-old who has a pretty big serve and drives a mean forehand. Her attitude is the right one for grass, she thinks in terms of moving forward. As a lowly qualifier though you have to expect reality to come crashing in, and JHH is too good a player to let her opponent really get her teeth into the match. But for a few moments there we saw Justine look almost puzzled. This was someone new for her, and Bremond had the sort of game to disrupt the Belgian at least for a while.

But Justine fought her off and finished it in two sets, 6-4, 6-4. I fully expect Henin-Hardenne to win her first Wimbledon this year. Probably her opponent will be Maria Sharapova. They are the two with the most desire, and the skill to translate that into sheer physical aggression.

Kim Clijsters should have been taken to three sets by her opponent Li Na, who was up 5-2 in the second set. But the Chinese girl could only match her most of the way, not all, and Clijsters overtook her in two sets. 6-4, 7-5.

Amelie Mauresmo did have to go three sets against Anastasia Myskina. During the first week we heard things like, “Mauresmo keeps moving easily and very quietly through the draw, taking care of business blah blah blah..” We seem to hear this about Mauresmo at a lot of tournaments. She pulverizes the early field. And then she gets into the later rounds and runs into people who can beat her in rather wilting fashion sometimes. I think Brad Gilbert has even changed his mind. His early prediction was for her, based on her style of play. But today he’s picking Sharapova and JHH to appear in the final.

So I would have to agree that Mauresmo’s chances do not appear that good to me now after all.

Tomorrow’s quarters for the men have a few ho-hummers too. I think Federer and Nadal will easily top Ancic and Nieminen. They had great runs, but they’re worn out. And it’s Roger and Rafa after all. No screw ups here.

Our marquee match on Wednesday should be Marcos Baghdatis against Lleyton Hewitt. I think Marcos will win through, but Hewitt will give it all he’s got. And yes, I would agree with Brad Gilbert saying that Baghdatis would fare better with his game than Hewitt against Nadal. But whether he is fresh enough is another story.

More and more it is looking, wonderfully, hopefully, like another Roger Nadal final.

And we probably won’t require a streaker for that one.

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