WIMBLEDON, England -- It wasn't Jim Morrison -- although the guy did, c'mon baby, light a fire. It wasn't Van Morrison -- although the youngster was dripping with as much Southern charm as any Tupelo Honey. No, the Morrison who was out there romping to still another thoroughly incomprehensible upset on Centre Court in the second round was none other than Jeff Morrison, the pride of Huntington, West Virginia, Spartanburg, South Carolina and the University of Florida -- by way of a central casting call for The Serve-And-Volley-Boy-Next-Door.

	Jeff Morrison is playing in his first Wimbledon.

Not that Juan Carlos Ferrero cared about how exciting or sweet or quotable this particular Morrison was or how many way stations in the Southeastern United States the 23-year-old, 6-foot, dark-haired stylist had traversed to arrive at this particular destination.

Ferrero, the Mosquito, the runner-up at the French Open, the ninth seed at the All England Club, got his stingers absolutely decimated by 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 (5) by a Morrison who was on song all day. (Hey, Spartanburg, to which Morrison gravitated to a private tennis academy, is the hometown of another musical icon, The Marshall Tucker Band.) After the fact, in fact, Ferrero sounded as if he didn't know whether he'd been blown out by an entire orchestra. "I play against him in doubles in Miami. I knew that he serve very well and also he return very well," said 'Skito. "But nothing more special."

Well, it was surely special to Morrison who, when he found out about his Centre Court appearance the night before was excited but upon awakening Thursday morning became "a nervous wreck." Then he actually had to walk out on the historical greensward. "I was pretty much taking it all in, looking around a lot, just saying: 'Oh my gosh, here I am. Who would have ever thought that I would be here?"

Not necessarily most of his high school tennis teammates back in Huntington who are now in "...probably marketing, pharmaceuticals, all those nine-to-five jobs," laughed Morrison. But the teenager himself wanted something else for a career, and he knew he had to get out of West Virginia to accomplish anything in tennis.

Not that the coal mines and country roads of the Mountaineer State aren't prime real estate to perfect your drop shot. But the last human West Virginian of any sex who could whack a fuzzy ball with world class facility was probably the legendary Peachy Kellmeyer, who reached the U.S. Top 10 and made it all the way to her current position as senior vice president of operations for the WTA tour.

Then again, the Morrison family business -- Jeff's dad, Alan, runs a wastewater and sewage management operation in Huntington; his mom is a homemaker and his sister is a sophomore at Wake Forest -- didn't seem a particularly peachy way to go.

"What's the difference between wastewater and sewage," an inquiring reporter asked Morrison, who just cracked the top 100 a couple of weeks ago. In tennis, not plumbing accoutrements.

"One and the same," laughed Morrison, who recalls "gophering, including cleaning up the pipe yard" as one of his summertime duties -- which obviously hastened his retreat to the tennis court.

Four years from the time the kid was hustling to get in three or four practice hits a week in Huntington -- he escaped to that Carolina tennis academy and then to a college scholarship and coveted spot on the Florida Gators' team -- Morrison found himself playing for the NCAA championship. And upsetting Harvard's James Blake to win it.

"It was then that it occurred to me I might be able to make a living at tennis. But I was a sophomore and weighed about 148 pounds. I wasn't exactly ready for the tour," Morrison said. Not that he's any giant now. He weighs 160 and it took another year on campus at Gainesville -- he reached the semis in defense of his national college title -- as well as a whole lot of grinding mostly on the challengers tour before he got a whiff of a breakthrough.

In 1999, Morrison made his Grand Slam debut as an amateur, losing in the first round of the U.S. Open to Ivan Ljubicic. But four other attempts to qualify for other Slams went for naught. At this time last year, he was ranked 359 in the world. But in 2002, Morrison copped a couple of scalps on the main tour -- particularly in Memphis, nailing Thai Terrific, the grass-pocketing Paradorn Srichaphan, whom Andre Agassi might remember from Weird Wednesday at Wimbledon. And he won a couple of challenger events, as well, including Surbiton outside London in which he beat his young American pal, Taylor Dent.

Then this week Morrison -- mirroring that Other Yankee Killer, George Bastl, who shocked Pete Sampras -- emerged as a "lucky loser" from the Wimbledon qualifying rounds at the Roehampton Club. As for those poor folks, wrote Ron Atkin in Thursday's Wimbledon program: "There is a temptation to bracket them with the souls who came back from the Charge Of The Light Brigade. Shell-shocked but glad to still be around."

Reporter: "What's the difference between the Challenger Tour and Wimbledon?"

Morrison: "Here, you get a locker room and a shower."

Somebody had to withdraw from the tournament for Morrison to get soaped up. In this case it was the star-crossed Tommy Haas, who was sixth seeded until both his parents were seriously injured when a car hit them while both were riding their son's motorcycle in Florida. Haas opted to go back to the states to be with them. "That kind of puts this whole thing in perspective," Morrison said. "It shows all of us we're just playing a game."

Finally, the kid nicknamed "Ship" is getting some results from that game. "Ship's for Battleship. For being a notorious fighter. I never give up," he said, "and some fan yelled that out at me during a high school match."

With Sampras and Agassi and Blake and Todd Martin and Michael Chang all gone; with Andy Roddick watching the Canadi-Brit home favorite Greg Rusedski zip aces past, while Dent couldn't catch a (tie)break from huge-serving veteran Wayne Arthurs on Friday, Morrison is the only American male left standing at the All England.

Wave the flag for Toni, uh, Jeff Morrison. Pray he never has to go back to the pipe yard. And hope American tennis doesn't completely go down with the "Ship."

Curry Kirkpatrick is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.