Of the 111 matches played in the Wimbledon women’s championship — there was a single walkover when Lindsay Davenport, the 1999 champion, retired before her second-round match against Gisella Dulko, of Argentina — 40 have been three-set affairs and there have been only 12 love sets. There is one conclusion to be drawn: that the competition on the tour is getting tougher by the year.

Those at the LTA who rightly point to a steady improvement in the games and the rankings of home-grown players do so against rising standards everywhere. When the world No 1 and No 2 (Maria Sharapova is second in the Sony Ericsson WTA rankings despite her No 3 seeding at Wimbledon) can lose to the No 133 (Zheng Jie, of China) and No 154 (Alla Kudryavtseva, of Russia) respectively, then something is clearly afoot.

It was Christine Janes, the 1961 Wimbledon runner-up, who remarked over the weekend that a $25,000 tournament in Minsk in which Amanda, her daughter, played last year included six players who are in the Wimbledon main draw by right. These included Alisa Kleybanova, of Russia, at No 42, who plays her first grand-slam tournament fourth-round match today against Venus Williams, the defending champion, which has been allocated to No 2 Court, with all its grievous connotations.

“The progress these girls have made is quite astonishing,” Janes said. “You only had to look at them to realise they had great strength and ability, but it does go to show how these girls are so determined and hungry these days and the levels of determination they have to improve so quickly.”

Having suffered the loss of Justine Henin, the Belgian who retired six weeks ago while the world No 1, the second week of Wimbledon suffers because of the loss of players such as Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic and Amélie Mauresmo. On the other hand, we ought to celebrate the rise of so many new stars, the leading one of whom, Agnieszka Radwanska, of Poland, has won titles on three surfaces this year — hard (in Pattaya City, Thailand), clay (in Istanbul) and on grass (in Eastbourne nine days ago). Svetlana Kuznetsova, the world No 4 from Russia, faces a grilling on Centre Court today.

Time stands still for no woman. In Britain we point to the fact that Laura Robson is among the best 14-and-under players in the world and much is to be hoped for from her. It will not be long before she is going to have to announce her presence on the main stages because of those battling for the Wimbledon title this week, Agnes Szavay of Hungary is 20, Kudryavtseva the same, Radwanska 19 and Kleybanova 19 next month.

Kudryavtseva, the Russian who disliked Sharapova’s outfit so much she decided to fashion a second-round defeat for the former champion, followed that with a dig-deep 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 victory over Peng Shuai, of China, in the third. Her postbag has been overflowing in the past couple of days since she made her comments about Sharapova’s attire.

“Yeah, I received a lot of messages, I’ve got a lot of new friends,” she said. “Well, not real friends. You get messages from people you didn’t hear from for quite a while.

“To be honest, everyone congratulates me with a good match, a great win. Personally, I didn’t get any comments about what I said the other day, let’s try to get over it. Let’s talk about tennis. I’ve never been in this situation. I was surprised when I saw the newspapers. I didn’t think it was going to be such a big thing.”

But did she realise she had impressed many people with her candour? “Well, yeah. I definitely made some people happy,” she said.

There is still the chance of an all-Russian semi-final line-up and we are assured of one in the quarters, when Kudryavtseva plays Nadia Petrova, the Eastbourne finalist.