AS HE lay there on his stomach on the hallowed lawn, kissing the thick blades of grass that were none the worse for wear and tear, he was destiny's Chosen One.
As he sprinted up the steps of the most famous tennis stadium in the world to celebrate the greatest moment of his life with his family and friends, he was Destiny's Favourite Son.
As he kissed the Challenge Cup that had three times in the past eluded his slippery hands, he was Destiny's Man of the Moment.
Yet, looking back, it was Goran Ivanisevic who did the choosing. After several futile attempts which slowly took on shades of Don Quixote tilting at the windmills, the enigmatic Croatian left-hander, lost in the wilderness of men's professional tennis for two years, finally chose as his chief ally, his talisman, something called destiny.
You might have thought that his original choices - the most feared serve in the world, blistering returns, sharp volleys - were the right ones for grass court glory. Well, so did Ivanisevic for a dozen years and more.
But, they didn't work. So, after trial and error, Ivanisevic requested a wild card from the pin-striped committee men at the All England Lawn Tennis Club and then turned up at the Fred Perry gates armed - apart from his rackets - with his undivided loyalty to something called destiny.
You could have laughed at it in the first week at Wimbledon 2001 if you had heard Ivanisevic say that he was destined to win the championship this year.
But sport - and destiny - quite often has a way of laughing at us, the seemingly all-knowing critics. And, at the end of one of the greatest men's championships of all time, as Ivanisevic lifted the Challenge Cup after an epic five-set victory over Pat Rafter on People's Monday, the mercurial Croatian and his chief ally, destiny, were objects of awe rather than mirth.
Indeed, an Ivanisevic triumph was something that was destined by fate to happen. We didn't know it. He did. If faith can move mountains, then his faith in destiny lifted Ivanisevic to the very pinnacle of his career and, at once, turned one of life's perennial No.2s into a champion of substance.
"It's my destiny to win here this year," Ivanisevic said after winning a semifinal match over three-days against Tim Henman. "Three times I have held that plate (the trophy for the runner-up) and this time I don't want it. I want to win. I am destined to win."
When a man has such unshakeable faith in his own destiny, despite the fact that he is a wild card ranked 125 in the world, he becomes a sort of irresistible force that can move even an immovable object.
And so it turned out to be in an enthralling final in which Rafter did everything he could but, in the end, had to bow to Destiny's Darling.
"I have always been No.2. That is not good enough," said Ivanisevic, the first wild card ever to win a Grand Slam title, the lowest ranked player to win Wimbledon and the first left-handed champion on the famous grass courts since John McEnroe in 1984. "Now I am Wimbledon champion. Nobody can take that away from me."
If we love sport simply because of its unpredictable nature, then we also love sportsmen of whom we can never be sure as to what they can or cannot accomplish. And when an unpredictable player brings off one of the most astonishing victories of all time in the most famous championship in the sport, then the drama takes on the contours of a true epic.
So indeed it was at Wimbledon this year as Ivanisevic sneaked in as a wild card, saw his great nemesis Sampras depart in the first week - to be sure, that was when Ivanisevic's own faith in destiny became unshakeable - and then hobbled into the final past an unlucky Henman.
"The rain, God sent it. God wants me to win this year," Ivanisevic said after beating Henman in a match that was first interrupted by rain when the Briton was slicing up Ivanisevic.
Ah, destiny: fate considered as a power. What a difference belief in destiny can make! The monster serve considered as a power; the forehands and backhands considered as power. Nothing worked. Then the man from Split chose destiny.
And now, a little over a week after the remarkable Ivanisevic triumph, it is not at all difficult for us, too, to believe that the mad-axeman from Croatia who has the tendency to summon up the Brian Man -destiny's messenger perhaps - with a 911 Emergency call every time he's in trouble, was actually destined to win Wimbledon.
Meanwhile, by any reckoning, this was one of the greatest men's championships in qualitative terms. It was a thrill-a-minute fortnight as reputations were made and unmade, as shocks were absorbed and history was re-written.
Of course, the departure of the greatest of 'em all, an unlikely victim to the talented Swiss teenager Roger Federer, was, by far, the biggest of shocks, registering something like 9 on the Richter scale of upsets.
At the start of the tournament, the popular view among the critics was that Sampras, in the light of his track record since he won his record seventh title last summer here, was ready to be taken, that he was as shaky as he might have ever been.
But what nobody might have imagined was that the great man would end up losing in the fourth round to Federer, a 19-year-old playing in only his third Wimbledon, and someone who hadn't won a single match at the All England Club before this year.
Much has been made of the fact that Sampras lost his first five-set match at Wimbledon to a teenager. But the point is, the amazing run had to end some time and it ended at a time when the great man was struggling to play half as well as he is capable of, no matter that Federer himself played the match of his life.
But Federer's brief heroics apart, the men's championship produced several other thrilling contests of sustained brilliance - the best of them being the semifinal between Rafter and Andre Agassi - once again underlining the fact that the men's game has so much depth that even a player ranked outside the top 100 would have a good shot at a top ranked star on any given day, if the balance tilts just that bit for whatever reason.
And, then, the men's championship, incidentally, produced another first... at least a first in more than a quarter of a century. Ivanisevic was the oldest male player to win his maiden championship since the late Arthur Ashe out-foxed Jimmy Connors in the 1975 final a week short of his 32nd birthday.
On the other hand, the women's champion, still only 21, may very well look forward to a long and rewarding Wimbledon career. It is as yet too early to judge Venus Williams' place alongside such great champions as Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf, both dominant champions at SW 19. But there can be no doubt that the gifted athlete can, if all goes well, add many more titles to her collection.
As well as other young women such as Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters are playing, as much room as they may have for further improvement in their own game, when a player like Venus is in full flow, she may not face any serious threat on grass.
Over time, Venus has improved her net game and her serve is a huge weapon on the slick lawns. It gives her so many free points, something that is not within the reach of a majority of women players, even the top ones.
This apart, it is Venus' athleticism that gives her such an enormous advantage at Wimbledon. Like the great Bjorn Borg in his prime, Venus is able to reach balls with such ease, and so gracefully too. Little wonder that the former U. S. President Bill Clinton said she looked like a gazelle on court.
When a player has the physique and the ability to cover the court like Venus does, it means she has so much more time to make her shots. And when you add up all her virtues, what you have is a champion who can, in time, become a Wimbledon legend.
Perhaps the only question mark is over Venus' desire to find a place in history alongside the greats. She - as much as her whole family - doesn't seem to be passionately seized by a sense of history, doesn't seem to be motivated by the deep desire to set long-term goals to accomplish what the few great ones like Navratilova and Graf have done.
"I don't believe she's going to be hanging around for the next 10 years to become one of the truly great champions here. She might find other things becoming more important to her," wrote Chris Evert, herself a Wimbledon legend, in her column in The Daily Telegraph.
This is certainly a popular view among critics largely because of frequent utterances from the Williams family, and Venus in particular, about her "retirement plans."
After beating Justine Henin in a final that was a contest only for a set - the middle set - Venus said that she wasn't really thinking about records. That it was not at all in her mind.
"I really do things that make me happy. That doesn't mean I have to do things the way the next person does it. For me, if I want to play, I'll play. If I don't, I won't. If I want to go to school, if I want to retire.. I'd do whatever is important to me, not because that's conventional," said Venus.
It is this unconventional approach to her career that turns Venus into a sort of maverick in the women's game at the very top and also makes it impossible to come up with any sort of prediction about her future, let alone her place among the greats of the game.
For all that, this brilliant young woman has played at Wimbledon for two years like she owns the court, displaying supreme confidence in his ability to win each time she steps on the grass court, no matter how well grooved her game is.
But the smug complacency about her own natural talent and athleticism, not to speak of her mental strength, something that borders on arrogance, may backfire some time in the future if players like Henin and Clijsters and her own sister Serena improve and the experienced ones like Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati and Lindsay Davenport manage to put it all together over the Wimbledon fortnight.
Then again, right now, all this is nothing more than speculation. Only time will tell where Venus Ebone Starr Williams will stand in the gallery of great tennis players if and when she gets that far in the all-time hierarchy. The only thing that is beyond dispute is the young woman has the physical and technical resources to travel far.
For all the excitement about Venus becoming the first women's champion since Graf in 1996 to successfully defend her title, the women's championships itself would hardly rank among the more memorable ones of recent years.
The early departure of Hingis, the listless performances from Davenport and Serena Williams when they needed to rise to the occasion, and the sheer size of the list of absentees - Mary Pierce, Monica Seles, Anna Kournikova - saw the event ride piggy back on one of the finest men's championships of the Open Era.
The emergence of the elfin Belgian Henin was surely a plus, a huge plus. But there were few other events of equal significance. Apart from Venus's ability to raise her game to meet the demands of the moment, what stands out in mind are Henin's courage and skills in the face of adversity and especially the 19-year-old Belgian's backhand - by far the most delightful shot in the women's game, and one of the most pleasing sights in the game overall.
1972 Stan Smith bt Ilie Nastase 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.
This first men's singles final to be played on a Sunday was regarded as the finest since Jack Crawford beat Ellsworth Vines in 1933. It was a classic contrast of styles.
1975 Arthur Ashe bt Jimmy Connors 6-1, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4.
Connors went into the match as the top-seeded favourite, but Ashe's counter strategy of denying Connors pace, worked brilliantly. It was probably the finest tactical triumph in modern times.
1977 Virginia Wade bt Betty Stove 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
It may not have been the best tennis, but it was certainly one of the most memorable for followers of the British game. In the tournament's centenary year and watched by the Queen, Wade fought back to win at her 16th attempt.
1980 Bjorn Borg bt John McEnroe 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7, 8-6.
The last of Borg's amazing run of five consecutive victories; his toughest and probably his finest. The 34-point tie-break which decided the fourth set is now part of tennis folklore. Borg held five match points which McEnroe saved.
Men's singles: G. Ivanisevic (Croatia) 500,000.
Women's singles: V. Williams (U.S., 2) 462,500.
Men's doubles: D. Johnson (U.S.) & J. Palmer (U.S., 3) 205,000.
Women's doubles: L. Raymond (U.S.)/ R. Stubbs (Australia, 1) 189,620.
Mixed doubles: L. Friedl (Czech Rep)/ D. Hantuchova (Slovakia) 87,000.
Boys' singles: R. Valent (Switzerland, 10).Girls' singles: A. Widjaja (Indonesia, 8).Boys' doubles: F. Dancevic (Canada) & G. Lapentti (Ecuador).
Girls' doubles: G. Dulko (Argentina) & A. Harkleroad (U.S.).
Men's Over-35 doubles: J. B. Fitzgerald (Australia) & W. Masur(Australia) 16,000.
Women's Over-35 doubles: I. Kless & R. Nideffer (S. Africa) 11,410.
Men's Over-45 doubles: P. B. McNamara (Australia) & P. F. McNamee (Australia) 12,560.
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