Venus Williams was in the middle of a first-set tiebreaker when her mother yelled some encouragement from the players' box at Rod Laver Arena.
Oracene Price's urges to ''fight'' were clearly intended for her daughter, but they appeared to immediately fall on deaf ears, and with good reason. On the last point of a tiebreaker she eventually lost, Venus hurt herself twisting for backhand volley.
''It was really tough, but I'm a long way from home and it's such a long way I didn't want to go back yet,'' Williams said after surviving a 6-7 (6), 6-0, 6-4 second-round win over her Czech opponent, Sandra Zahlavova.
''You've got to be able to play under all kinds of circumstances - good, bad, strange, weird, all of the above. I had to just calm myself down. In the middle of a match like that, you can get a little hysterical.''
Her fighting spirit - as well as the strapping and perhaps a painkiller - helped continue a streak in which Williams has completed all 257 singles matches she has started at Grand Slams.
Never has she retired with an injury in a major.
Still, she needed some help at the end, asking courtside staff and officials - first chair umpire Alison Lang of Britain, then a ballboy - to help carry off her equipment bag and rackets.
Williams was well enough to carry off her glitzy handbag, which went with her outfit - a revealing peek-a-boo lattice-style top with a multicolored satin short skirt she later referred to as her ''Alice in Wonderland'' outfit.
In the third set, Williams broke Zahlavova's serve in the seventh game and served out the match.
''This is probably the most acute one I've had,'' Williams, who has won seven major titles and contested 52 Grand Slam tournaments, said of the pain level. ''In recent times it's been one of the toughest ones for sure but I just wanted to stay on court and survive.
''Obviously I wasn't able to play at my exact level so I had to play smarter and hang tough.''
Williams said had she not been playing a Grand Slam, she likely would have retired from the match.
She is not sure how the injury will respond to treatment in time for her next match in two days against Andrea Petkovic of Germany.
''I don't know,'' she said. ''I'm going to try to recover for Friday and get ready to play and bring my best tennis. Hopefully I can come through.''
