LONDON -- It was noteworthy that a pair of the usual, free-loading, celebrity nonroyals in the royal box during the celebrity women's quarterfinal at Wimbledon on Tuesday were "Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber." That would be Andrew, the composer, and his third wife, the former equestrienne, Madeline Gurdon -- ironic inasmuch as the show that unfolded before them on a hot, humid Centre Court was mostly Les Miserables all over again. Too bad Lord Andy didn't even write that. Even worse, though, he had to sit through it's encore.

As Jennifer Capriati defeated Serena Williams, 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 6-3, for the fourth time in a row, it was sometimes difficult to believe that the former was winging toward the third leg of the Grand Slam, the latter was the Big W insiders' pick to stop her and win the tournament herself and that both were among the best players in the world -- rather than a couple of shrieking, bumbling, gagging, physically depleted characters in need of a M*A*S*H* clinic. Or a psychiatrist's couch.

For much of the afternoon, the two pretty maidens were all in a row -- double-faulting (13 doubs combined), mishitting, dillydallying if not outright stalling (SW), rushing if not outright bricking returns (JC) and of course halting the proceedings altogether with physical breakdowns. As it happened, Capriati had to be treated both on-court and off by trainer Michelle Gebrian for a strain in her (politely speaking) "glut." Yeah, rhymes with butt.

Williams' problem was slightly above and forward of that: her, uh, stomach -- gastritis, she would attempt to say, a disability that she claimed had caused her to go without food for 40 days and 40 nights or something. Once in the match she requested of Gebrian some bananas, which she quickly gobbled down. Another time she sprinted off the court to use the ladies' room, as Capriati rolled her eyes. Afterward, she said she was so sick all week she nearly pulled out of the tournament prior to her fourth-round contest with Maggie Maleeva -- a titanic battle she squeezed out, 6-2, 6-1.

"I went to the doctor twice." Williams said. "It was gas. I don't know, gastromunical [sic] virus, viral infection. I've been taking a lot of Pepto-Bismol, Imodium AD, things like that." And in Tuesday's match? "I was in pain, yeah, for sure." she said afterward. "Nausea. Right now I have the chills. I don't feel well. I have a horrible headache. I'm not alive right now .... I just think my problem is I'm a hypochondriac. [That's] someone that is always prone to get sick, prone to get hurt and injured, more prone than the next individual. That's me. Under hypochondriac, they should put: 'Serena Williams.' "

Under shocked and amazed, read Doubter, they should put: Jennifer Capriati, who spent two hours and twenty-seven minutes witnessing her broad-shouldered foe powerslug Mark McGwire-ian aces (nine of them) as well as race across the terrorized greensward like a skirted Ray Lewis. "It's pretty much the same things that happen every time I play her," said Capriati. "so I'm used to this. Maybe she had a bad case of, like, diarrhea or something. [The umpire] said she had to use the bathroom, it was an emergency. I didn't want to know the details. [But] I thought she said she was an imposter in France, and this is the real her coming out. So I don't know."

Since the younger Williams sis came out by winning the U.S. Open in 1999, she's bewildered more than Capriati by an astonishing array of give-ups, pullouts and medical emergencies.

Canadian Open, 2000, finals: She retired in the middle of the third set against Martina Hingis.

U.S. Open, 2000, quarterfinals: She blamed a loss to Lindsay Davenport on an "injured knee."

Australian Open, 2001, quarters: She blamed a loss to Hingis on "food poisoning."

Ericsson Open, Miami, 2001, quarters: She blamed a loss to Capriati on her knee, again.

French Open, 2001, quarters: Pretty much the same thing.

Even if the 19-year-old Williams (the world No. 5) had a legitimate handful of these injuries over the years ... Hey, girl, get a (hospital) room! But stop being another Williams Who Cries Wolf, for godsakes.

"Seems like Serena likes to do this against Jennifer," Davenport said. "I saw these girls' match in Miami. Serena was limping around. I saw them play at the French. Something was wrong there. And again today. I don't know if it's the losing or she has a mental thing with Jennifer. A lot of times when [Serena] is down, something happens with the trainer going on the court."

To be fair to the match, both Capriati and Williams pound the ball with such relish and speed these days that multiple errors -- Serena made 38 on her own -- become inevitable. But it's one thing for a match to be patchy, uneven, inconsistent. This thing was ridiculous. Indeed, it was left to Capriati to rescue the occasion -- as she has revived the entire women's game all season -- with another brave recovery from the brink of defeat, specifically two points from losing the chance to prolong her impossible dream Slam.

Down a set and a break, 3-5 in the second and 0-30 on her own serve, however, Capriati basically held on to the ricocheting roller coaster that the match had become while Williams went flying off, sickeningly (apparently, literally; she claimed later she had vomited during the match) into oblivion.

What happened at that point was truly remarkable. The Capster not only took over the game, she won the set and closed out the match about as quickly as the loser could come down with another mysterious affliction. Which meant immediately. Over the next several sun-drenched seconds, Jen Jen won nine straight points and 16 of 19 to close out the set, 7-5, considerably benefiting from Serena's ability to pop up volleys practically to Westminster Abbey.

And that wasn't the end. (Unfortunately.) As soon as set three began, Capriati began running off games with a viciousness that belies her sweet smile -- obviously avenging Williams' comments earlier in the week that in their match in Paris "someone was impostering [sic] me. I was hitting errors and going crazy. This time I need to make sure I'm playing the way Serena Williams knows how to play."

Well, how is that? Capriati went to 5-0 in the final frame so fast, Richard Williams didn't even get a chance to hold up some placard with silly excuses, even though Serena had plenty of those. Excuses for her improvising weird shots -- somebody called them "sidewinder slices" -- whaling balls into the champagne enclosure and flat-out tanking. Or, as Pam Shriver politely defined it while broadcasting the match for the BBC: "letting go of the match."

Her partner in the Beeb TV-cast, John McEnroe -- who is on more networks these days than Slobodan Milosevic -- was not as sensitive. "How many easy balls have these girls missed? It's unbelievable!" he bellowed at one point. "It's torture for these girls to serve the ball! This is just abysmal!" he said at another.

Following the fifth game in the second set, during the long delay in which both competitors were being treated by trainer Gebrian, McEnroe and Shriver were as entertaining as anything happening on court.

JM: "How come the [on-court] microphones were so good when I played? We can't hear anything!"

PS: "Because you were so much more interesting."

JM: "I got an idea. Why don't we let these girls take a break. Just let them go to the locker room, and bring Tim Henman and Todd Martin out here for their match. Then the girls can rest, relax, get ready, start over and maybe then they can hit a ball."

PS: "Once again, a great idea from Johnny Mac ... Oh, Capriati is leaving the court. She must need a rubdown in a sensitive area -- if you know what I mean."

JM: "No, what do you mean?"

PS: "Uh, I hope Serena doesn't eat all four of those bananas. That would be curtains."

JM: "I used to eat bread ... cheese.

PS: "Cheese? Stilton ... cheddar ... muenster ... what?"

JM: "Uh, I think we better go up to the royal box."

Alas, by that time, even Lord and Lady Lloyd Webber had disappeared -- as quietly as (I couldn't resist) The Phantom of the Opera, faster than the Starlight Express -- probably for their afternoon tea and crumpets.

Undoubtedly, that's one more meal Serena Williams had to miss.

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