Serena sad to bow out before final act

ose rare occasions at Wimbledon when Serena Williams has been beaten before the final - and it has only happened twice since she won her first title in 2002 - she has very visibly shown her devastation at the loss.

So when, after her fourth round defeat by ninth seed Marion Bartoli, she was clearly disappointed but seemingly not in the depths of despair as she talked through the match, it prompted a few questions from the media. Had she come into Wimbledon half-expecting an early exit? Did she believe now that she hadn't been ready to compete after almost a year out of action? Did lower expectations mean that defeat did not bring the same anguish?

No, Serena, insisted. Defeat still hurt. To the questioner who had tentatively suggested that she did not seem as bereft as when normally mourning the loss of the Wimbledon crown she has worn four times, she replied a little drily: "I'm more devastated than ever. I'm just a much better actress now."

Reaching the fourth round stage on the back of so little match play in the past 12 months could be seen as an achievement, but Serena insisted she had come into Wimbledon with positive plans: "I never came here thinking I would lose. That's my attitude. You know, you win some and you lose some. Today just happened to be the one that slipped under me."

And with her road to recovery in mind, she added: "My mentality was just to do the best that I could. The thing is I feel I can do a lot better, which would really suck if I was thinking [that] I played my best and that was the best that I could do.

"I think I did really well just being able to come back and play and win some matches. Even [though] today I lost, I was able to hang in there and play tough."

Ever a champion, she clearly had hoped for more from herself, right up until the end. Of the match that ended her title bid, she said: "It felt like I missed a tremendous number of shots out, which is better than into the net. That's a start, I thought, at least it's going out. Sooner or later it will go in. Usually, I can come back and do a little bit better. But unfortunately I didn't."

This early departure leaves Serena to focus on her training and getting back into the groove, which her doctors have given her carte blanche to do, saying she "can train as much as I want to".

As if to count her blessings, she said "I can't sit here and be disappointed because I had no plans of coming here before, so I can just use this as momentum going forward." And she offered some words of warning for anyone who might consider writing off the 29-year old, "I can only get better, and that can potentially be really scary, because I can only go up from here and I can just do so much more."