For 55 minutes this afternoon, Centre Court became dangerously giddy as a 19-year-old Brit ranked 197 in the world slugged it out with the defending Wimbledon champion Venus Williams; toe-to-toe, grunt-for-grunt, winner-for-winner.
The Brit in question was Naomi Cavaday, a strawberry blonde from Chislehurst with more than a touch of the Charlie Dimmocks about her. Her opponent? Venus Williams, a six-time grand-slam winner with career earnings of more than $18.5m, and with one of the finest physiques in the women's game.
Whatever the female equivalent of David versus Goliath this was it. And yet. And yet ...
During the opening set, Williams was repeatedly surprised by Cavaday's serve - particularly her slice out wide - and the meatiness of her groundstrokes. Cavaday's youthful spunkiness impressed too: she took the game to Williams from the off, breaking her early to go 3-1 up and, after she was clawed back, nervelessly held serve to force a first-set tie-break.
For a moment or two in that opening set, a few on Centre Court even entertained thoughts of probably the most unlikely British win in Wimbledon history. But Cavaday lost the tie-break and, quickly, the will for a fight. In the second set the British No5 suddenly looked shattered, both physically and emotionally, and put up little resistance as she went down 7-6, 6-1.
"I gave it my best shot," insisted Cavaday. "I was relaxed in the first set, I felt comfortable, I felt like I belonged here. I wanted to fight. I wanted to compete. But in the second she definitely upped her game - and I didn't get enough first serves in which didn't help."
Cavaday also brashly claimed that she "had enough puff out there to play for hours" but to me there were echoes of her performance last year, when she ran former Wimbledon champion Martina Hingis close before crumbling 6-0 in the final set.
After today's match she admitted that "consistency was a problem", and revealed that she has struggled over the last year with illness and injury over the past year. Working on her fitness would certainly help too: a farmer's daughter might wheeze and redden after an hour or so of tennis; a professional tennis player clearly shouldn't.
Next up for Williams is another British player, Anne Keothavong, who traded errors and breaks of serves before squeezing past Vania King in three messy sets.
Keothavong, the British No1, perhaps deserves a wider press than she has had thus far in her career. She grew up playing tennis in Hackney Downs Park, long before Guardianistas decided the area was fashionable, and after plodding away on the circuit for years finally broke into the world's top 100 for the first time earlier this year - the first British woman to do so since Sam Smith in 1999.
She is athletic, possesses a decent first serve, and has won two ITF tournaments this year. But whenever she plays on the main tour she invariably loses. Today's win was only her second victory in seven appearances at Wimbledon and, while she will deservedly get her moment in the sun against Venus on Thursday, you sense it won't last long.
