As an overhit forehand whizzed past Timea Bacsinszky, ending her perilous brush with calamity and sending her into the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the first time, she dropped her racket, raised her hands and screamed with an intensity that might normally have alerted the emergency services.
Certainly there was much to be happy about – 90 minutes earlier her defeat seemed more than likely. Not just a set lost 6-1 but an unhappy period in which she was outflanked and outthought to a degree that seemed irretrievable.
It was more than just a win; the No15 seed’s progress at the expense of the Romanian Monica Niculescu represented another milestone in one of the more compelling stories of grand slam tennis.