Marcos Baghdatis wasted little time in booking his passage to the Wimbledon quarter-finals with a straight-sets demolition of Russia's Nikolay Davydenko.
In a match low on quality but high on intrigue, Cypriot Baghdatis took a little over two hours to vanquish his misfiring opponent 7-6 (7/5) 7-6 (7/5) 6-3 to book a last-eight meeting with either Novak Djokovic or Lleyton Hewitt.
A chilly and grey start to the day rendered Court 13 a somewhat inhospitable place prior to the match, but once play began a vocal clutch of Baghdatis supporters lifted the atmosphere, cheering every point won by their 10th-seeded hero.
And they soon had even more reasons to shout when Baghdatis stole a break on the Russian's second service game.
But in a scenario that would play out time and again in this scrappy match, the Ukrainian-born Davydenko broke back in the next game to level the set at 2-2.
The 26-year-old held his next serve before Baghdatis, semi-finalist here in 2006, put on an impressive showpiece of his skills, sending chalk flying with three consecutive on-the-line serves before holding to love with a thumping ace.
The pair each held the rest of the way to bring up the first tie-break of the match, which went the way of Baghdatis when Davydenko fired an easy forehand into the net just as sunlight began to spill from behind SW19's resident clouds.
For a man who referred to Wimbledon as 'the world's most boring tournament' in a recent interview, the antics of Davydenko in the next set bore the hallmarks of a man keen to entertain.
In the fourth game and with the set going with serve, Davydenko pressed the self-destruct button in a big way with a succession of weak backhand strokes into the net to gift 22-year-old Baghdatis another break.
The animated Cypriot fans responded with cries of 'Marcos, Marcos!', but in reality, Baghdatis had done very little to bring about this welcome advantage.
However, the 2006 Australian Open runner-up failed to hold his next serve, and the pattern was repeated in games six and seven as both players again read their opponent's serve with ease.
Two further breaks apiece followed to cancel out any advantage either might have gleaned in this ugly passage of play, paving the way for a second tie-break.
Predictably, the tie-break was littered with mini-breaks, but when the dust finally settled, it was Baghdatis who emerged triumphant, taking the set courtesy of an overhit Davydenko forehand.
By now Davydenko's head appeared to be elsewhere, and he rather amateurishly surrendered his opening service game of the third set, firing weakly into the net to bring up break point and gifting the game to his opponent on a subsequent double fault.
Given what had gone before, few in the crowd were expecting Baghdatis to hold all the way to secure the set, but - very much against the script - he did just that, stealing another break into the bargain.
He completed victory, fittingly, on the Davydenko serve, powering a crosscourt forehand winner beyond the despairing Russian on his second match point to send the assembled Cypriot hordes away with yet more to cheer about.
