Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Kuznetsova & Her 'Do Are Done

WIMBLEDON, England, July 5 -- Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova has garnered mixed reviews for the cornrows she has sported since arriving at Wimbledon, the tight braids woven into braided extensions that fall to her shoulder blades. After her quarterfinal loss to Venus Williams on Thursday, Kuznetsova appeared at her post-match news conference without them, reverting to a free-falling shoulder-length look.

"My head was very tired and was asking me to take them out," Kuznetsova explained. "It was two weeks and a half."

Kuznetsova said that Williams, who famously wore braids with colorful beads as a teenage phenom, had given her advice about maintaining the hairdo. But she admitting she was having trouble getting used to the sensation, as well as keeping the look tidy.

"If you're not used to it, it's getting dirty faster," said Kuznetsova, 22. "You cannot really wash it good because otherwise your hair goes outside. It's been hurting me a little bit, but it's okay."

Everyone's Getting Testy

The rain that has marred every day of the tournament except one is grating on players' nerves, it seems.

On Monday, Sweden's Robin Soderling got so irked over the amount of time Rafael Nadal was taking to serve between points that he started mocking the Spaniard, tugging at the bottom of his shorts as Nadal does. When their match finally ended, Soderling offered the most cursory of handshakes at the net, and Nadal criticized him later, both in English and Spanish, as a poor sportsman and strange guy.

Then on Thursday, the normally well-behaved Jonas Bjorkman erupted during his match against Tomas Berdych, firing a slew of Swedish expletives at the chair umpire after what he considered a "horrendous" call in the third set, overruling a 130-mph serve on break point on the far side of the court.

Bjorkman, 35, went on to lose the match, Berdych triumphing 6-4, 6-0, 6-7 (8-6), 6-0.

"There's a lot of guys out there who's trying sometimes to make sure that everyone can see them on the court when everything goes well," the Swede said. "You don't have to interrupt the game. All of a sudden they try to be in the picture."

Bjorkman refused to shake the umpire's hand afterward.

Addressing the Crowd

Next to the groundskeepers who cover the grass courts at the first drop of rain, the busiest person at Wimbledon this year has been the public-address announcer, who is ever faithful in updating spectators on the weather forecast and the prospects for a resumption of play. In the midst of Tuesday's massive thunderstorm, he was careful to remind ticket holders that "umbrellas and lightning don't go well together." On Thursday he found a new way to share bad news after play had been suspended for more than an hour, announcing, "The rain will be sometimes moderate, sometimes light, for some time yet."