It was a dull, grey afternoon, but a prompt start was followed by two hours and 13 minutes of uninterrupted play. Then play was halted, in light rain, after a gracefully controlled skid by Edberg. The Swede had been preparing to serve at 2-3 down in the third set.

After a break that lasted for three hours and 23 minutes, Edberg took 47 minutes to finish the job. At 4-5 down he saved a set point with a service winner to the backhand. Whereas each player was on target with roughly 52 per cent of his first services in the first period of play, Edberg had an advantage of 54 to 39 when they came back.

Not that the count of first services mattered as much as we thought it would. The second services were exemplary in quality and variety. Both men returned service well but each volleyed with such penetrating, terminal assurance that the chances of a breakthrough were rare.

Play was held up four times by an intrusive sparrow, or sparrows: selecting hazardous terrain for admiring the scenery and hunting for snacks. At least they gave the players time to think. Sparrows apart, everything happened fast as steel flashed on steel.

McEnroe took a gentle tumble in the first game of each of the first two sets. But he was the first to break service, with the help of two double-faults. Three games later he served two double-faults himself: and Edberg broke back. Neither man dared to serve his second ball short, because the receiver was always waiting to pounce.

From 2-4 down in the first set Edberg won five games out of six because, at the time, he was slightly the more consistent. ``I fear that Edberg will win,'' muttered a German colleague, suspecting that if Becker reached the final he would have a better chance against McEnroe than against Edberg.

In the second set, Edberg and McEnroe in turn had a break point: each aborted by a service and volley. At 6-5 Edberg had a set point but was decisively frustrated by a centre-line ace. In the tie-break McEnroe served four times but failed to put a first service into court. By contrast, Edberg was on target with four out of five first services. There were two mini-breaks. These arose from a McEnroe double-fault and a delectable backhand lob by Edberg.

That was two sets to Edberg, each by fine margins. We recalled that in the first round McEnroe had recovered from two sets down to beat Darren Cahill. With every respect to Cahill, he is no Edberg. But the break, after five games of the third set had gone with service, gave McEnroe a chance to ``regroup,'' as he likes to put it.

It was evident that only the McEnroe of five years ago and there is still much of that McEnroe left could climb out of the hole Edberg had relentlessly dug for him. In short, McEnroe had to move into that elusive ``zone'' in which the improbable becomes possible. Was the magic still in him ?

Up to a point, yes: but only in flashes. One came in the eighth game of the third set when he played two consecutive top-spun lobs, on the forehand, in the same rally. Each man had a break point (McEnroe's was also a set point) before McEnroe, in the twelfth game, gave us another moment of splendour. Edberg's first service and cross-court backhand volley looked decisive but McEnroe hurtled across the court and hit a blazing forehand down the line. Again, he won the point but lost the game. He was having that sort of match. In the tie-break, five consecutive points went against service, with Edberg the first to strike. The twelfth point finished the match: McEnroe's first service missed the mark and, off the second, Edberg hit a characteristic winner, a violent cross-court backhand.

This contest between the inscrutable Swede and the scrutably artistic anti-hero was mostly conducted in terse, strong terms. But there were sporadic rallies in which both men deftly explored the possibilities for finesse, usually in the forecourt. One says ``usually'' because Edberg in particular also played some teasing lobs. McEnroe entertained us with a rich variety of volleys: some like arrows, others like feathers. What a glorious touch he has. The personalities were interesting, too. One saw Edberg as a composed, elegant gunfighter and McEnroe as the type who emerges wild-eyed from back-street bars, looking for trouble and well able to deal with it. Edberg was tall, erect, willowy: McEnroe, on the other hand, looked rather rumpled and fidgety, as if he had dressed in a hurry.

McEnroe often looked slightly the more flexible in his control of the racket head and the technical diversity he commanded. But Edberg kept pounding away, volleying to the corners, and slamming every door McEnroe tried to open. Edberg's emotional response to the ebb and flow of the match was seldom evident: except for his shuffling hop of pleasure whenever he had done something clever. McEnroe is not the kind to give even that much indication that he is happy. His feelings became clear only in a gloomy way: when he had fallen short in his ceaseless pursuit of perfection. In his time, he has been closer than most men to attaining that unattainable goal.