five great wimbledon shocks

Dokic en route to a stunning win in 1999,

It happens to the greatest of them all - and on Friday it happened to Justine Henin.

One minute there they are, honed and heroic, ready to march gloriously into the next round at Wimbledon to the applause of adoring crowds.

Then fate intervenes with a reminder that life is not quite like that.

Wimbledon has produced its share of shock results over the years and sure enough there will be more to come. It is part of the enduring fascination of the event.

Here are some of the tournament's biggest upsets in the women's singles.

Billie-Jean Moffitt v Margaret Court

Looking back, it is strange that a victory for the most important female player in the history of tennis could be described as a shock, but that is what it was. Little Miss Moffitt had yet to blossom into the great Billie-Jean King when she came up against formidable top seed Margaret Court in the second round in 1962. Australian Court - later Margaret Smith - was a mighty athlete whose power, skill and stamina brought her an astonishing 24 career Grand Slam tournaments, three of them in this same year. After a first-round bye at Wimbledon she faced effervescent 18-year-old Moffitt, who won 1-6 6-3 7-5. The American later won the title six times - and the headline Ace King Queen was born.

Jennifer Capriati v Martina Navratilova

Martina Navratilova was 34 and had appeared in the last nine finals at Wimbledon when she faced a 15-year-old prodigy fresh off the US production line in the 1991 quarter-finals. The clock was ticking on the greatest female player the world has ever seen, but it was still a shock to see her humbled on Centre Court by a youngster who was two when her opponent first took the title. Jennifer Capriati won 6-4 7-5 to become the youngest player - at 15 years and 96 days - to reach the semi-finals since Lottie Dod over a century earlier. "I'm not giving up. I still feel I have some really good tennis in me," said Navratilova. But the queen had relinquished her crown for good.

Lori McNeil v Steffi Graf

No defending women's champion had ever been beaten in the first round at Wimbledon and that perfect record was hardly likely to be broken by Steffi Graf in 1994. The athletic German was virtually unbeatable on grass and had won five of the previous six Wimbledon championships. Only once in her previous 138 tournaments had Graf failed to get beyond the first round - in the 1992 Virginia Slims event. Her opponent that day? Lori McNeil. On a cold, blustery evening with squalls of rain interrupting play, the American did it again, raising her game to win 7-5 7-6 as the champion failed to get into her rhythm.

Jelena Dokic v Martina Hingis

The mother of all shocks as 1999 top seed and world number one Martina Hingis was blown away by a 16-year-old qualifier ranked number 129. The Court One crowd watched in stunned disbelief as Jelena Dokic took 54 minutes to humiliate Hingis 6-2 6-0, dumping her out in the first round. Only two weeks earlier, Hingis had been jeered for her tantrums in the French Open final, and at Wimbledon a familiar face in the crowd was missing for the first time - that of her mother, who had gone home to Switzerland. It was the wrong opponent at the wrong time as fleet-footed Dokic confirmed her status as a future star by playing uninhibited tennis of control and accuracy to overwhelm her unhappy opponent.

Virginia Ruano Pascal v Martina Hingis

As in 1999, Hingis capitulated against someone she was expected to blow away, producing some appalling errors on the way. The writing was on the wall as Hingis lost the first set 6-4 to the Spaniard, ranked 83 in the world. And memories of her nightmare of 1999 were in the minds of spectators on Court One as she fell 3-0 behind in the second set. Despite breaking her opponent, Hingis was immediately broken back and the top seed became a Swiss Miss again, going down 6-2 in the second.