It has come to this at the Rogers Cup women's tournament.
As the top seeds have fallen like tenpins in a bowling alley, the lesser lights have come to the fore, sometimes with rare, hardly genteel-like emotion. Thank god for any kind of excitement at this point.
Agnieszka Radwanska (world No. 12) won a hard-fought match against bright new face Andrea Petkovic – who just arrived in the world's top 10 this week – and will advance to the semi-finals on Saturday after a 6-4, 6-3 win.
Radwanska, banished to the lesser courts earlier in the week, was playing on centre court for the first time on Friday in her match with Petkovic. Now she's on centre stage and in the spotlight with her precise and wily shot-making.
Two years ago, Petkovic didn't make it through qualifiers at the Rogers Cup. Last year, she lost in the first round. And yesterday, she was so close, a thumbnail or two away, from making it to the semi-finals.
So after she lost the first set, she felt the frustration rise, with her emotional Serbian heart (she is a German citizen), and thumped her athletic bag with her racquet in frustration. She took a dive at the net with it, too, and she banged her leg with her hand. Her coach came out and delivered an intense monologue to her as she collected her thoughts.
With John McEnroe in the wings, waiting to play in the Legends tournament here, was there an old sniff of that memorable petulance?
"I think nowadays, you don't see it any more," Petkovic said afterwards. Actually, McEnroe was one of her favourite players.
"I really enjoyed his outbursts, I have to say, " Petkovic admitted. "But he was a different kind of personality. He used it to his advantage. In my case, if I have an outburst, most of the time I cannot use it to my advantage, so this is a problem.
"But I think everybody needs to find the right way for himself. I think nowadays, the players are really much calmer than they were in the days back then. Me, personally, when I watch tennis? I like to see some emotion."
This is not to say that Petkovic is an arrogant diva. Hardly. In a musty pit of single-minded children of the racquet, Petkovic is a breath of fresh air.
She's candid to the nth degree. She lives with a smile. She counts having friends as "one of the most important things in life for me." She reads Goethe, an accomplishment in itself. And she zips through Shakespeare in German (wading through it in its native English throws her off track.) She wants to establish a political party in Germany. She writes an outrageous blog, making fun of herself, and some day wants to be a journalist. (Lord help her.) On video websites around the world, Petkovic is known as Petkovazzi, a play on the word paparazzi. She's known for her Petko dance, a jig she does after victory, although she picks her spots, not wanting to disrespect her opponents.
Petkovic made some great strides this week. On Thursday, she defeated Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova (No. 7 in the world). She not only defeated her. She dominated her, winning 6-1, 6-2.
Radwanska also slew giants in a understated way, taking out third seed Vera Zvonareva to get to the quarter-finals.
Radwanska met Petkovic only last week in Carlsbad, Ca., and defeated her there, too, in the semi-finals but with Petkovic in the mix, it wasn't a boring event.
Read her blog on the adventure and it's pure Petkovic: After the first set, Petkovic said she felt drained, like she wanted to vomit all the time. "I told the umpire I wanted to go to the bathroom, because I had to throw up," she wrote. "I think everybody heard it actually!
"At the point where I ran out, I couldn't hold it back any more. ….I'm sure you don't want details of the bathroom, but I felt way much better after running off the court like a maniac. I had trouble finding my intensity after that."
Now that she's out of the tournament, Petkovic will have some time for some Canadian beer, something she's been pining for. But Radwanska will have to go to work to stave off Samantha Stosur, who earlier defeated Roberta Vinci in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1.
"I'll have to be 100 per cent to beat her," said a weary Radwanska, after dealing with the power of Petkovic.