Fourth seed Jelena Jankovic today became the biggest casualty of Wimbledon so far when she was forced to retire from the fourth round of the women's singles against Russia's Vera Zvonareva with a back injury.
The 25-year-old Serbian never looked comfortable and quit having lost the first set 6-1 and trailing 3-0 in the second set.
Her withdrawal removes a major hurdle for second seed Venus Williams in the lower half of the draw, although the five-times champion from the United States was forced to fight for 6-4, 7-6 victory over Australia's Jarmila Groth.
Jankovic turned up for the match on Court 12 with heavy strapping around her right thigh.
She wasn't helped early in the match when she took a tumble while attempting to reach a Zvonareva forehand. And her plight went from bad to worse when Jankovic double faulted to concede the fourth game.
Zvonareva took just 24 minutes to clinch the first set and raced into a 3-0 lead in the second before retiring.
Williams never had it easy against Groth. The American took 35 minutes to claim the first set but the second set took nearly twice as long before Williams sealed victory in a testing tie-break.
