O'Donoghue holds dignity under fire

Partisan crowd cannot save Briton from the champion's lash.

Jane O'Donoghue survived as long as she reasonably could and emerged with dignity just about intact. But Venus Williams destroyed the satellite player in 45 minutes, confirming that she might more accurately have been named Mars.

And the 6-1, 6-1 scoreline by which the debutante lost to the champion will not silence questions about whether the generous dealing of wild cards is actually helpful to British tennis.

Fantasies lasted no longer than the first blow. O'Donoghue received a feverish bubble of applause as she walked to receive and it was punctured by an ace. It was then deflated by a love game of 75 seconds and a first set in which she managed one point against serve. "When did you sense that it might be difficult?" an American voice asked afterwards.

O'Donoghue laughed but said nothing. Her responses to what was close to an ordeal were encouragingly appropriate. She was ready first at the start. She declined to serve before the crowd was quiet. She attacked almost all the time and she explored an entire range of aggressive options.

And when she won her first game, for 1-3, she orchestrated a crescendo to the applause with a flourish of an arm.

The crowd warmed to that. But there were two moments in the second set which illustrated the chilling gap in playing standard between the impecunious Wigan teenager and the multi-millionairess from Palm Beach.

O'Donoghue hit a decent first serve, an even better forehand follow-up and a forehand drive volley that was a Williams look-alike. But the riposte still forced her back and she still lost the point. From that moment it was clear things would not get better.

In the penultimate game O'Donoghue hit an accurate forcing serve and advanced to punch a volley deep to a corner. Two giraffe strides took Venus there and her forehand was so early that there was room to evade the second vol ley and still find the court.

But the match at least had occasion. The crowd sighed at the plucky failures, gasped at the bombshells and exaggerated their encouragement for the bombarded one. Twice that seemed to irritate Venus, sometimes sensitive to knock-backs from spectators; fierce winners silenced them. There were hints of irony in the demonstrative wave and grin with which she greeted them in the subdued aftermath.

O'Donoghue signed a couple of autographs but left the champion to scribble the rest. The 19-year-old had shown a good forehand, good legs, a good brain and a very good spirit. But she had future business to think of. "I'll work hard now to get my chance to come back here," she said.

No one could fault her for optimism. "I approached it believing I could win. I went out and feel I did myself justice. I took the game to her. I wish I had won a few more games but that will come."

O'Donoghue was much less hopeful when asked how Venus might be beaten. "When she plays her best, she'll beat anybody. You really have to stay with her in the first couple of games and test her because when she starts to unleash she's very dangerous."

This was the unexpurgated version of what actually had happened.

O'Donoghue had visualised Venus as something very different from how she really is and declined to say what she had in mind. It might have been viewed as uncomplimentary, agreed Gloria Budd, the psychologist. But compliments flowed the other way.

"She played very well," the champion said of the outsider. "You could see she had a game plan, to be aggressive and to go for all the opportunities, and I think she executed quite well. To reach the top hundred she should keep playing that way. She shouldn't be discouraged.

"But I serve well and have a lot of experience and I am so comfortable on grass."

Williams will not now meet a seed until the fourth round; Paola Suarez, seeded 28th and in Williams' half of the draw, was defeated 6-4, 5-7, 7-5 by the American Jill Craybas

Another seed to depart was Anna Smashnova who was well beaten 6-3, 6-2 by the Indonesian Angelique Widjaja.

Their defeats brought the tally of beaten women's seeds to four with Nicole Pratt and Alexandra Stevenson having fallen on the first day.