Of all people, a lucky loser. Someone who had been beaten once already at The Championships, in last week's Qualifying at Roehampton, while Iga Swiatek hasn't lost anywhere in the world since February.

Who could have imagined that Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove, a Dutchwoman ranked 137 places below Swiatek, would end up troubling the world No.1, who has put together the longest winning streak by a female player this century? 

While Swiatek extended her run to 37 consecutive victories, this was a long way from being the mismatch that many in the No.1 Court crowd would have been expecting.

Why, the Pole didn't even get to add to her collection of 17 'bagel' 6-0 sets in what has already been a carb-heavy season, dropping the second set before gathering herself in the Wimbledon breeze for a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory to move into the last 32.

Swiatek's psychologist has been saying that her client doesn't obsess over the streak. Perhaps for that reason, her run doesn't seem to sit too heavily with her, as it might have done with others in the same situation.

Equally, Pattinama Kerkhove didn't appear to be at all intimidated by Swiatek's run, and how no one had beaten her opponent in more than four months. 

Pattinama Kerkhove had been beaten in the final round of Qualifying by Christina McHale, an American ranked the wrong side of 250, but was then given a second chance when another player withdrew from the main draw.

Here was a lucky loser doing everything in her powers to make her own good fortune on the grass, who was hitting through the ball and unsettling the sport's alpha female, and it made for an entertaining spectacle.

Pattinama Kerkhove's reward was a 4-2 lead in the opening set. As if to demonstrate that Swiatek wasn't comfortable, she slipped at the baseline during that sixth game, going splat on the grass. 

But you don't get to assemble such a long winning streak without having the resilience to work your way out of some awkward situations, and Swiatek won the next four games to take the opening set, and also the first game of the second set (think of that as the streak within the streak).

At that moment, you might have expected a lucky loser just to fade away, to remember her place in the tennis food chain. But that wasn't what happened here, as Pattinama Kerkhove kept on toiling away in the second set.

The lucky loser got lucky with a net cord winner to break for a 4-3 lead and she held on to that advantage to level the match at a set apiece.

In the opening game of the third set, Swiatek found herself 15-40 down, but she saved the two break points, and went on to win yet another match. 

"I'm pretty happy it's 37 but I want to add to that number," said Swiatek, who equalled Martina Hingis' streak in 1997, and who next plays Frenchwoman Alize Cornet.

Much like Roger Federer in his prime, Swiatek's dominance over tennis is a kind of benevolent dictatorship.

She's charming in more than one language, so other players don't seem to hold it against her when she keeps on going through draw sheets, with her streak bringing her six titles already, in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and Roland-Garros.

She now moves a little closer to winning a seventh title in a row. As a former girls' singles champion at the All England Club, Swiatek knows how to play on grass, though she is yet to go beyond the fourth round of the ladies' singles. 

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