LONDON -- Well, just how hot was it?

It was hot enough for Pete Sampras to compare it to the day in 1993 when he beat Jim Courier in the finals. Hot enough for Tim Henman, the local lad, to make adjustments to avoid looking straight into the sun. (Yeah, that makes sense, even for a Brit.) And especially hot enough to frazzle the top-ranked female player in the world, Martina Hingis, into such a state of incomprehensible insensibility that she would wear long sleeves under the burning, 86-degree rays, fold herself across the grass like a weeping willow and lose to somebody named Virginia Ruano Pascual, 6-4, 6-2.

This was in Round 1 on Day 1 of tennis' Number 1 tournament -- The Championships -- and the No. 1 player was gone practically before they'd poured cream over the strawberries. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun, but now add Swiss Misses manifesting precious little focus, desire, inspiration -- and a whole lot of fashion (no-)sense.

Marty, babe, those sleeves?

"It was a new [adidas] shirt for Wimbledon, but normally it's cooler here these days," Hingis explained after she became the first No. 1 seed in history, man or woman, to lose in the first round ... twice. Two summers ago Hingis infamously quit here in her opener against Jelena Dokic, in the midst of a pouting, angry rebellion/split with her mother/coach. This time, Hingis insisted, the circumstances were different inasmuch as she was playing with an injury ("a little tendinitis in my lower back") suffered during her pre-Wimbledon practice in Switzerland a week ago. "I wasn't really able to move ... I was just afraid of moving," she said. "But I didn't want to miss Wimbledon. I mean, if I had to play some other player, like I said, I wouldn't even have come here. [But] I knew I had a chance against Virginia."

You think?

Against a woman ranked No. 83 in the world? Who'd scratched out a bare seven games against Hingis in their two previous matches? Who'd already this year piled up defeats against the likes of Tatiana (Pooch) Poutchek, Nuria (Double L) Llagostera, Angeles (Charlie's) Montolio as well as Ana Isabel (The Judge) Medina Garrigues?

You guess?

"I'm very happy today, no? Is a dream for me, no? Maybe it's the grass, no? The court is green today. Maybe is the big difference, no?" asked Ruano Pascual, no relation to Camilo (Little Potato) Pascual, although she does spin righthanded fastballs and she's more at home on dirt surfaces. Actually, the curly-haired 27-year-old from Madrid, the daughter of an Iberia Airlines worker, is flying high -- having won the French Open mixed doubles alongside Tomas Carbonell, and now this, back in her comfort zone on grass where she's experienced success before. Three years ago at Wimbledon Ruano Pascual had the infant Serena Williams beat, leading 7-5, 4-1, when Serena retired due to injury. It took Serena's sister, Venus, to dispose of the Spaniard in the fourth round.

To dispose of Hingis in the first on Monday, it took little more than for Ruano Pascual to show up. "I didn't know she was injured," said the winner. "She run on the court and she serve and she do everything. I'm sorry for her. But ..."

Obviously, for those observers of tennis romance, there is some doubt that Hingis' back is the problem. She closed out 2000 as the No. 1 player for the third time in four years, but since winning five of nine Grand Slams from January '97 to January '99, Hingis has not scratched in the majors. First the Williams sisters stole her thunder, then Lindsay Davenport continued the Big Babe theme, whipping the comparatively mini Marty on several grand occasions. Now this year Jennifer Capriati (remember her?) -- Martina's sparring partner at Saddlebrook in Florida -- has dominated her in the last two Slams, and 'Ol No. 83, Ruano Pascual -- "watches sports [especially handball] ... favorite food is paella," says the WTA Players Guide -- has mown the All-England Club lawn with her sad carcass.

If it isn't distraction enough for the slump-ridden Hingis that her mom, previously parent/coach-of-the-decade, Melanie Molitor, is now as off-and-on in that capacity as Larry Brown is; that Martina herself recently filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Tachini claiming their shoes hurt her feet; that she had to testify against a deranged stalker in a trial that put him away for two years; that she's broken up with a quartet of tennis boyfriends, Justin Gimelstob, Julian Alonso, Ivo Heuberger and Magnus Norman, all of whose rankings are disappearing off the face of the earth in her wake; now the prosecutor in the stalking case is following Hingis around himself.

This time, though, call it consensual stalking.

Or maybe Jackson Browne had the answer: Lawyers In Love.

"Martina's a fabulous lady. I'm happier than I've ever been in my life," Chis Calkin, 31, a Miami Dade assistant state's attorney, told the Miami Herald last week. He's a former Michigan State track athlete and Michigan sheriff's deputy who lives on a $39,500 salary. She's 20, a girl who, Forbes recently reported, made $11 million last year. They met on April Fool's Day. They were planning to meet again next week in London. "I'm willing to spend whatever money I can get and whatever time I can get away from my work to be there for her," Calkin said.

Alas, at Wimbledon:

Whoops, she did it again.

And nuts, he'll be about a week late.

Curry Kirkpatrick is covering Wimbledon for ESPN The Magazine, E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.