FOR THE second time in the history of Wimbledon there was play on the middle Sunday and, unlike 1991, the local players produced plenty to cheer about for the thousands of fans who descended on SW19

The British boys had the spectators roaring their approval on centre and number one court. But the women were taking the more traditional - for ladies read losers - approach with the last two, Lorna Woodroffe and Karen Cross failing to make it through the weekend.

Cross, a qualifier who is ranked at eight in Britain, had already outperformed the rest of the hosts by making it to the third round. Her achievement was rather over-shadowed in the end by her failure to finish off French Open champion Iva Majoli when it seemed that the Croat was certain to follow Goran Ivanisevic out.

The world number five had managed to get through just three games of what should have been a perfectly straightforward match when she began to run into problems.

A back injury required the prolonged attention of her physio and by the time she had battled her way through to the end of the first set she was strapped up more heavily than your average immersion heater and looking just about as mobile.

To the delight of those locals watching events on court two. Cross took that opener by six games to four and, with her opponent still struggling badly she scored a couple of breaks in the second to move to within a service game of victory.

Perhaps stung by the prospect of such an embarrassing defeat against a player ranked some 227 places lower than her in the world, Majoli began to rally and. having narrowed the gap to 3-5 she saved a match point in the eighth.

By now she was beginning to display her vast superiority over the Englishwoman, taking the second set in a tiebreak by repeatedly running her opponent from one side to the other and compensating for her injury by stepping in a couple of metres from the base-line to take Cross's shots very early.

I think at that point she got a bit nervous, which helped me and then in the third my back seemed to be getting better and I knew that I had a good chance to win the match, said the delighted Ma Jell afterwards.

Win it she did, with the Croat coming out on top by six games to four in the third to stem a run of defeats for the tournament favourites. Still a round behind, Monica Seles, who had dropped the first set of her match against 20-year-old Kristina Brandi from Florida on Saturday night also survived when play resumed yesterday, eventually winning 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 to progress.

Not so fortunate, however, were Lindsay Davenport, Brenda Schultz McCarthy, Amanda Coetzer or Conchita Martinez, with none of the seeds even managing to force their matches into a third set.

Martinez, the champion in 1994, was in deplorable form as she was overrun to four and two by the 32-year-old Helena Sukova. The five times quarter-finalist attacked the Spaniard from the first point and with the 10th seed's passing shots deserting her from around about the same time, there was never really any doubt about the outcome.

An even bigger shock followed, however, when the last singles match of the evening pitted the handsomely self-assured Russian teenager Anna Kournikova against the seventh seeded German, Anke Huber.

She may not have a terribly inspirational record on this surface but Huber has been around a bit over her seven years on the circuit. As a former Grand Slam finalist, it seemed reasonable to expect that the 22-year-old world number 10 would have the experience and temperament to put an end to the youngster's ambitions.

When Huber took the first set 6-3, the overall outcome seemed fairly certain but, from that point on it was the Russian who looked the calmer.

After fighting her way back to level terms by taking the second set 6-4, Kournikova held firm through the closing stages as her opponent made error after error under the growing pressure. She finally surrendered the match to a single break of service in the third set.

The 16-year-old's reward is a place in the fourth round where Sukova now stands between her and a place in the last eight.

Also unseeded, meanwhile, but widely expected to make more of an impact on these championships than a first round exit, was Venus Williams, the 17-year-old from Los Angeles whose defeat by Magdalena Grzybowska was further evidence of the ground she must make up in terms of competitive experience before she can hope to fulfill her considerable potential.

Just a year older than the Wimbledon debutante, Grzybowska lost the first set of this contest to four but, from that point on, the Pole's tar greater experience of competitive play - she has been plying her trade on the women's circuit for some three years now - helped her to take complete control.

Grzybowska levelled up the proceedings by taking the second set 6-2 and, producing a wonderful range of shots from the baseline, as her opponent's nerve faultered badly, she completed the victory with a service break to love in 10 of the third.