Time stood still for top seed Ana Ivanovic at Wimbledon on Wednesday as she stared defeat in the face in the second round against Nathalie Dechy.
The ball rolled along the net on match point in the second set and then, after two agonising seconds, dropped in for her.
"Someone from upstairs made the ball roll over," the world number one said after her cliffhanger victory had the crowd rising to its feet to accord the pair a standing ovation.
Reliving the most tense seconds in her tennis career, the 20-year-old Serb could not stop smiling.
"I felt like time stopped for a moment," she told reporters after her 6-7, 7-6, 10-8 victory against the 97th-ranked Frenchwoman. "The ball hit the net and it was in the air for a couple of seconds."
So she felt the least she could do was go and kiss the net afterwards for giving her such a lucky reprieve.
"If it wasn't for that net and that place, you know, I would be booking my flight back home," she said.
Ivanovic, who took the world number one spot after triumphing at the French Open, admits to being a very superstitious player. She does not walk on lines on court and at tournaments eats every night at the same restaurant.
It clearly worked at Wimbledon.
"I felt so lucky. After that point, my adrenaline went up and I was so, so pumped up all of a sudden because you see this as another opportunity, another chance," she said.
"At that point I also felt like I had nothing to lose because I felt like I had lost the match already -- so I could only win."
Ivanovic was quick to congratulate Dechy for a memorable match and said "She deserved to win also because she played really well."
So, after squeaking through to the third round by the narrowest of margins, does Ivanovic feel she has used up all her Wimbledon luck for this year?
"I don't know. If in the next match, the opponent has a let call against me, I won't complain because what goes around, comes around," she said.
