By DPA
London : Just in time for Wimbledon, Britain's summer strawberry crisis has been nipped in the bud.
Catering officials at the All England club had been on alert after hitches looked to be developing in the production pipeline for the iconic fruit of choice at the Championships.
Local press reported that a supplier with a over a decade's relationship with the event was worried that not enough pickers could be found to fill Wimbledon's massive annual order.
The reason was down to EU bureaucracy, which said that 40 percent of the field workers had to come from new EU states Romania and Bulgaria. Under the order, recruiting from the traditional labour pools of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus was off the table.
But Wimbledon bosses breathed a sigh of relief after 400 workers were found and put to work in southern Kent, loading berries by the truckload for transport to Wimbledon.
So far, supplies of cream appear to be safe.
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Serena shrugs off thigh injury revelation
Behind her facade of the invincible warrior, two-time Wimbledon winner Serena Williams admits she is carrying a hamstring injury.
The Australian Open champion who is playing only her seventh event this season, was caught out by her erratic father Richard, who informed the world that his daughter was plagued by the thigh worry.
Once the news was out, Williams, a first-round winner Monday, went into damage-control mode. "It is not really a pull, just a tight hamstring," she said.
"It is doing okay and I'm just taking it one day at a time. It flared up but it is getting better slowly but surely. I'm hoping and praying it will get better in time."
Williams must next face an Australian threat in the form of Alicia Molik, no stranger to injury after dealing with an inner ear infection, which threatened her career in 2005-2006.