The sun continues to bless The Championships, the tennis is marvellous and the start of the second week, is traditionally the hottest sporting ticket in town, when the last 16 players in both singles events come out to do battle. What a programme it is, too, with the top six seeds in the men’s event, for a start. But the two clashes that promise to draw the main attention are in the women’s singles, where Serena Williams, the defending champion, and Maria Sharapova rerun their battle of the 2004 final, won so spectacularly by Sharapova, and the all-Belgian crunch between Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters.

Both Serena and Maria deny (rather gallantly) that meeting at this early stage of the 2010 Championships is not too early. The younger Williams sister is philosophical. What will be will be, is her take on it. Sharapova professes eagerness but she knows she could do with another round or two under that white visor of hers to fine-tune her game. They have not met on grass since that 2004 day when a 17-year-old girl, born in Siberia and educated in the game of tennis in the United States, overthrew the mighty Serena. Since then Miss Williams has triumphed in four of their five matches, twice with difficulty, twice with ease. But as Maria points out, every game is a new day. So she will be hoping for a glorious one this afternoon.

What a story is attached to the Henin-Clijsters occasion. Both women turned their backs on the professional tennis life, Clijsters to have a baby and Henin to give herself a desperately-needed break from the treadmill. In Kim’s case, she stopped playing in May 2007 and her daughter, Jada Ellie, was born in February 2008. What helped her to decide on a return to tennis was the exhibition she played as part of the ceremony to celebrate the Centre Court’s new roof in May last year. She returned to the tour in August and in her third tournament, as a wild card, won the 2009 US Open. Now for Wimbledon, where she is playing (apart from that exhibition day) for the first time since reaching the semi-finals in 2006,

Henin’s decision to stop was altogether more spectacular. For a start, she was world No.1, the first player to quit while holding this ranking. Involved in her thinking about a return was the fact that this is the only Grand Slam Justine has never won. She was runner-up to Venus Williams in 2001 and to Amelie Mauresmo in 2006. In her last Wimbledon, the 2007 Championships, she looked a cert for another place in the final until suffering an astonishing upset against Marion Bartoli in the semi-finals.

You could almost toss a coin to nominate the winner. As Justine points out, “We grew up at the same time, we arrived at the top at the same time, we almost retired at the same time and almost came back at the same time. So we are very close, but in terms of tennis we play different kinds. Kim is very powerful and has big weapons and is a real fighter also. I just try to use different kinds of things, but I will have to be very aggressive if I want to have a chance.”

In the men’s, the top two seeds have both needed to fight off ambushes to get this far. Roger Federer’s first two matches were protracted affairs, totalling nine sets, while Rafael Nadal has needed to ignite the afterburners to see off his second and third round opposition in five sets. Will it get easier or harder for the two men who gave us such an unforgettable final in 2008?
Roger faces a new face in Austria’s Jurgen Melzer, an obdurate left-hander, while Nadal should be in the comfort zone against Paul-Henri Mathieu, the Frenchman he has beaten nine times in a row.

Men’s match of the day promises to be that between the third seed, Novak Djokovic, and Lleyton Hewitt, the 2002 champion here. The Serb has looked impressive since a first round scare under the Centre Court roof and lights against the less-than-famous Belgian, Olivier Rochus but his mettle will be tested by the white heat of Hewitt’s game on grass, so potent that it accounted for Federer in the recent Halle final. Lleyton, bouncing back from knee and hip surgery earlier in the year, is no higher than 15th seed but will fancy his chances here, and with reason. The winner of this should go against Andy Roddick in the quarters, provided the American can lower the boom on Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu. If Roddick maintains the improvement curve he has displayed so far, it should be curtains for Mr Lu.

The French have had a good Wimbledon and even the losers, like Nicolas Mahut, have departed famous. They are certain to produce a quarter-finalist since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Julien Benneteau face off today. Tsonga, as 10th seed, will be favoured to progress and may well meet Andy Murray in the quarters. Having done a straight-sets demolition on another Frenchman, Gilles Simon, in the gloaming on Saturday, the lone British challenger is motoring most impressively, and will be hoping for something similarly spectacular against Sam Querrey, the American who was a surprise winner of the Queen’s Club tournament.

Like Murray, Sweden’s Robin Soderling has yet to drop a set in his glory march, serving like a demon and clearly none the worse for not having bothered to play a grass court warm-up before he strode through Wimbledon’s gates following his runner-up showing at Roland Garros. Soderling plays David Ferrer, a hero of Spain’s Davis Cup squad, and if he wins that one, as he should, he could be looking at a rather more famous Spaniard named Nadal in Wednesday’s quarter-finals.

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