The best known figure to appear on Centre Court yesterday felt it was business as usual and for her that was pretty much true.

Serena Williams cannot even remember her appearance on the last ‘people’s Sunday’ in 2004 –reminded of that meeting with Magui Serna she smiled briefly and said ‘That’s a blast from the past. Gosh!’ – and this encounter with Annika Beck had no reason to be any more memorable.

“I thought it would feel really different, but it didn't,” she said.

A full Centre Court, crowd on the side of an opponent who was being steam-rollered. Nope, nothing terribly unusual about that for the world’s best female player.

They perhaps showed their naivete late in the first set with the delight expressed as Beck’s attempted passing shot flicked off the top of the net and past the defending champion to allow her to hold serve, moving to 3-5 down in the opening set.

Her dander up Williams lashed the next shot past here opponent and produced another couple of unreturnable serves on the way to holding to love to clinch the set. Twenty minutes later and the match was over, without Beck registering another game and not so much as a point against the Williams serve.

With that her attention turned to the prospect of a potentially dangerous meeting in the last 16 with her friend Svetlana Kuznetsova the former French and Australian Open champion.

“We we always tend to get along, especially off the court,” he said.

“We leave it all out there on the court when we play each other. So I think that's really important.”

She expects it to be a tough battle, but again knows what to expect.

“I kind of feel like I know a little bit of her tactics, although she changes it up every time we play, but, you know, playing someone you haven't played before is a little bit tricky, because they present different things and you're not quite sure how they play,” said Williams.

“But going up against someone like Svetlana, she knows my game, I know her game. Then it's just really down, out to who's really gonna fight to win it.”

For her part, following Kuznetsova’s hard fought 6-7, 6-2, 8-6 win over another American, Sloan Stephens, she suggested she had a better relationship with Williams than she has with grass courts, but is keen to

“I have a difficult friendship with the grass,” she smiled.

“This year and every year I try to convince myself that I can do well. I see opportunities, but last year I didn't take them. This year it went better, so I'm looking forward for next match and just trying to enjoy it.

“It's a great thing to play Serena in Wimbledon. I'm really happy about it. She will be the favourite, but I enjoy playing those kind of matches. I will just try to do my best.”

She, too, was more focused on her tennis than on the unusualness of playing on Wimbledon’s middle Sunday.

“Next time, maybe in 10 years, the kids will say, ‘Oh, it's rain, we are play like the other girls did 10 years ago,’ but they won't remember who we were because I don't remember who played last time Sunday,” she observed, wryly.

As much as it was very much a case of sticking to routine for the players , though, there was a slight change of feel about the place in as much as it felt a good deal quieter walking around the grounds.

Maybe that was because, granted this special opportunity, everyone was trying to watch as much of the tennis as they possibly could and that came across in the better contested matches.

Just as it was often said of Scotland’s less well attended autumn rugby Tests that there was more atmosphere during matches than at sold-out Six Nations matches because they attracted a more knowledgeable and involved audience than the corporate set that holds sway when it comes to ticket allocations for the most popular events, so it like those most desperate to be here had spent the necessary couple of minutes constantly refreshing their computer screens on Saturday afternoon when the ‘People’s Sunday’ tickets went on sale.

If the opening two women’s matches on Centre Court gave them little opportunity to get overly involved, Williams’ fellow American Coco Vandeweghe having disposed of sixth seed Roberta Vinci with surprising ease, 6-3, 6-4, the last of the trio of matches they were served up was a treat as 2010 finalist Tomas Berdych took on German teenager Alexander Zverev.

On the weekend that John McEnroe had wryly noted that it had taken him 35 years to get from the Centre Court turf to its royal box those of a certain age had to enjoy watching this bandana clad, floppy haired youngster who by no means afraid to question the odd decision in fairly animated fashion.

Barely a shot was played without a shout of ‘Come on Alex,’ while he joined in the fun as he responded to a little tune coming from behind him by advising the owner: ‘Your ‘phone’s ringing man.’

They were already on his side and were even more so now as, two sets to love down, he won the next point to set up two opportunities for a double break in the third set

He failed to take them and in the following game during which Zverev had double faulted immediately after being interrupted when a ball deflected high into the crowd off the frame of his opponent’s racquet then off the commentary box, it was returned just as he was ready to serve, Berdych broke back, so there was possibly a touch of relief mixed in as they cheered his second break which brought him the set.

It was only a temporary reprieve, the 30-year-old Czech rattling through the next set 6-1 to take his expected place in the last 16