Jarkko Nieminen is the best player Finland has produced. His closest challenger is a man named Veli Paloheimo, who once crept into the world’s top 50 for a fortnight. Nieminen has been up to No 13, so it is a no-contest, which is why the chant at No 15 Court yesterday afternoon was “ Ay, ay, ay, ay, taito, taito!” which, its chanters cheerfully explained, translates as “Yeah, yeah, what skill, what skill!”

If, however, Finland’s best is not good enough to win on the lawns of Wimbledon, maybe the next generation of Nieminens will, for Jarkko’s wife, Anu, is the nation’s top badminton player. At courtside yesterday, Jarkko’s father, Kaukko, who is a tennis coach, said that he has high hopes for the grandchildren. Not that he has any yet – and, for the moment, Jarkko is enough of a story himself.

Nieminen yesterday took up the baton in The Times’s “Road to the final” series, which began in the qualifying competition in Roehampton, southwest London, last week. In the fading light of Tuesday evening, Florian Mayer, of Germany, beat Sam Warburg, the American qualifier, and yesterday Nieminen saw off Mayer 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3.

Mayer looked miserable throughout, even when he was ahead. Indeed, it was hard to warm to this man until later, when it transpired that, when Werner Eschauer, the Austrian player, pitched up in SW19 with no shoes, Mayer gave him a spare pair of his.

But at courtside yesterday, it was Nieminen who had the friends. Here at Wimbledon, you begin to recognise core battalions of diehard fans: the posse from Taiwan following Wang Yeutzuoo have a name for making a noise, and likewise the Finns following Nieminen. To put this more accurately, there is one Finn – the one wearing a Mickey Mouse tie and a red jacket – making a hell of a din and 18 others sitting around him laughing nervously and, when moved by their man’s success, joining in the “What skill!” chant.

The loud, jacketed one, a white-haired man named Risto Luukkanen, is the Finnish group’s unofficial tour guide. Luukkanen has a summer house in Masku, where Nieminen has lived all his life, and he has known Nieminen since he was a child. So when Nieminen starting treading the grander stages of the tennis world, Luukkanen began putting together travel packages for his supporters. Occasionally, their celebrity joins them for dinner.

But Luukkanen is now a celebrity in his own right, so ubiquitous at courtside that on Finnish television he is known as “The man in the red jacket”. Indeed, he embraces his role eagerly, waving his heart tablets proudly when Nieminen’s match is causing palpitations and explaining that they are also red.

The rise of Nieminen may cause the LTA a few palpitations, too, given the debate over the scale of the wages being paid to cohorts of foreign coaches. For Nieminen has not had a regular coach for two years; indeed, when he did have one – the highly-rated Fredrik Rosengren – his career went into reverse. Before Wimbledon, Nieminen called a press conference in Helsinki to say that he was to continue coach-less. And it seems to be working.

The closest he comes to a coach, then, is his father, who had been instructing children all his working life and then could not believe his eyes when the best young talent he saw was the one whose nappies he had changed. Kaukko is a regular at courtside, which is more than Anu can manage, given her badminton commitments.

The question, then, that Nieminen least enjoys is not whether he is the best Finnish player ever, but whether he is even the best racket player in his family. “It is hard enough to compete against the other tennis players,” was his answer. “I don’t really want to compete with my wife.”

The statistics, however, provide an answer. Nieminen’s all-time high is No 13 in the world; his wife’s is No 13, too. A score draw.

Road to final

Qualifying event

Monday, June 18

James May (GB) bt Lukas Lacko (Slovakia) 6-4, 6-3

Tuesday, June 19

Sam Warburg (US) bt May 6-3, 6-4

Thursday, June 21

Warburg bt Kevin Kim (US) 2-6, 7-6, 6-2, 6-1

First round

Tuesday, June 26

Florian Mayer (Ger) bt Warburg 6-4, 6-2, 6-2

Second round

Jarkko Nieminen (Fin) bt Mayer 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3

Third round

Mikhail Youzhny (Russ) v Nieminen