The magic of Brad Gilbert's hat finally ran out for Andy Roddick. Roddick's new coach had sported a 'Metallica' hat in the players' box throughout the American's heavy-metal charge through to the Queen's Club title and then straight into Wimbledon's last four.
Former US Davis Cup player Gilbert was given the hat - which until Friday he had begun to regard as a lucky charm - by his pal Lars Ulrich, the rock band's Danish drummer.
And Metallica - famous for hits such as Enter Sandman and Justice for All - can boast tennis pedigree in their own right. Ulrich's father Torbin was a top-level player and Lars is also a keen tennis fan who lists one of his heroes as the Argentine great Guillermo Vilas.
Brian Turner is the latest celebrity chef on the scene at Wimbledon after Ainsley Harriot's visit earlier this week, but Yorkshireman Turner was strictly on duty, presenting a showcase of British dishes - Yorkshire puddings, Lincolnshire sausages, Wiltshire hams etc.
Previously among the players the only food reference we had was America's Mardy Fish (and Chips) - which actually appeared in that form as a "special" in the media canteen.
"Showers" has again become the most-used word by the All-England Club's chief executive Chris Gorringe, who has been finding it increasingly necessary to announce weather forecasts over the public address system.
He delivers these messages of gloom in what was memorably described in one daily newspaper last week as his "creamy voice". And, indeed, public school-educated Gorringe, who has been in his Wimbledon job since 1979, does speak with a cut-glass, distinctly upper-crust accent.
So perhaps it is a surprise to some that he's also a down-to-earth, genuine football fan of West Ham.
Available from all good book shops - a remarkable and somewhat eccentric tennis-based publication by Spencer Vignes called The Server which, he says, is based on the award-winning film The Swimmer which starred Burt Lancaster.
The plot is certainly unusual. Lancaster, in his starring role, decides to clandestinely swim across the pools of his rich neighbours to make a journey across Hollywood. Vignes writes about his own experience of begging, stealing or borrowing the opportunity to serve a tennis ball in a number of disparate environments.
These include a knock-up in the street against a spiky 81-year-old he pressed into, well, service - and a single serve on the court in Tim Henman's family home back garden after he had persuaded Tim's parents Tony and Jane to give their permission.
No such luck when he wrote to Wimbledon.
So complete with Morris Minor getaway car our pen-friend found a way to sneak onto the hallowed turf on one of the outside courts, make his single serve and make a run for it.
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