As the dust settled on the beaten Jelena Jankovic's angry attack, ably supported by the wounded pride of the Williams sisters, the All England Club finalised the order of play for today's women's quarter-finals and decided, not without irony, to keep the defending champion away from Centre Court again.

The Club insist there is no bias as to which players feature on Centre Court or Court One and argue that Courts Two, Three, 11, 14 and 18 are all showcourts.

By definition that may be true but it would be churlish to argue those outside courts match the grandeur and atmosphere of the two stadium arenas.

Jankovic branded it "unusual" that the No2 seed would be asked to play on Court 18, while Serena claimed it "strange" that sister Venus should have to continue the defence of her title away from the stadium courts.

Venus played her first-round match on Centre Court as a matter of tradition but the fact she then played British No1 Anne Keothavong will have influenced the decision to stage that match in the same place.

Her third-round tie saw a switch to Court One before she suffered the apparent ignominy of being shunted out to Court Two to beat Alisa Kleybanova in straight sets. Venus is back on Court One today, playing Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn.

All this takes place, of course, while men's defending champion Roger Federer plays all his matches on Centre and will continue to do so as he seeks a sixth straight Wimbledon title.

Hell, even Andy Murray has played all his matches on the most famous court in the world and, until last night, had never been past the fourth round.

So is it a male/female bias? Federer seems to think not and can barely understand what all the fuss is about.

"The thing is, Pete Sampras played on Court Two after winning here for seven years," he said, dealing with the issue in the same dismissive fashion he has swept all before him at SW19.

"Who deserves what here? It's the club who decide in the end. We're happy to be playing here. They can put us at Aorangi or Roehampton if they want to but we have to accept the fact.

"I wouldn't be disappointed if they put me on Court Two. More like, 'why can't I play on Centre Court or Court One because they are such nice courts?'

"I hope that day will not come for me. I understand there is a little bit of disappointment but I don't think it has anything to do with disrespect. That's not what this tournament is all about."

He's right: this tournament, at least on the women's side, has been all about upsets but the scheduling issues and courting controversy is not an adequate explanation. After all, Ana Ivanovic and Maria Sharapova both lost on Court One and when No4 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova joined the exodus of top players yesterday, she argued the tour's gruelling schedule can explain the abnormal goings on at SW19.

There are now barely two weeks between the French Open Final and the first day of Wimbledon, leaving players to balance the on-court time required to adapt to the vastly different conditions with the need to rest and recuperate after arguably the most intense period of the tennis calender.

As Kuznetsova said: "For me, the grass court is tough to get used to and nobody has time to get used to it the after French Open. It's tough. I was suffering so much in my first match. And none of the other girls want to play one week before Wimbledon because everybody needs rest. The season is too long. There's no way to go from the French Open to get into good shape for Wimbledon.

"I was feeling better maybe today and my past match. My first two matches, I was playing pretty horrible. You still go through fighting or you have a bit of luck. So I think it's because of this that everybody's out."

But it surely isn't that simple. Sharapova argued after her tame exit to world No154 Alla Kudryavtseva that the depth on the tour is such that players have to work in every round of a slam. "I've always said there's depth on the tour," she said. "I'm always asked about who is the bigger threat, who's your toughest opponent, who's your rivalry with.

"But at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. All that matters is on any given day, whoever your opponent, you have to beat them. Everybody can present a challenge, everybody has a lot of strength and everybody is hungry."

But the tennis equivalent of 'there are no easy fixtures in international football' when everybody knows there are doesn't wash.

And what of those fans who have turned up today, having paid £50-plus to see the glamour girls of the WTA Tour on the showcourts? Would they agree that it is good to pay top dollar to see players such as Tanasugarn and Jie Zheng purely in the interest of displaying the strength in depth of women's tennis?

The game should, of course, promote its new faces but there seems a delicious irony that three of the players who launched the 'Looking for a Hero' marketing campaign on the WTA Tour should now watch on as new Wimbledon heroes are created. On Centre Court.