Man-boobs are not a common sight on the Wimbledon Centre Court these days, but when chunky world No.772 Marcus Willis added a welcome retro flavour to a men's main draw menu more likely to be gluten/sugar/dairy-free than steak 'n' chips, Roger Federer was not the only one to consider how rare such obscure-battler-makes-good stories have become.
As Federer mentioned (while outfitted in his personalised sponsor-wear, his Rolex sparkling and his hundreds of millions safe in Swiss banks) after playing the role of regal spoiler in the marvellously knockabout tale of the tournament, tennis is simply becoming "mentally and physically maybe too gruelling", to produce too many Willis-like examples. 
Which was, well, some (comfort) food for thought.
"Mind you, this is the surface where it would happen, because there'll be anomalies on grass," said Wally Masur, coach, former US Open semi-finalist, and now commentator. "I was saying to someone the other day that when I first started out in 1981, there were a lot of Marcus Willises around; that's kind of how the tour was, particularly here in England.
"You had the Rothmans' girls, you had the Marlboro girls, you had blokes losing and they're straight up to the bar having a cigarette and a beer. You had blokes travelling all around Europe in a Kombi van, coming back to England and then just driving the van to Heathrow, getting on a plane and leaving it there with the keys in it. Now we live in this age of ultra-professionalism, where guys have an entourage of seven or eight. Marcus is like an anachronism, isn't he? He's popped up from the '70s."
And what a fabulous cameo. Such goodwill. So much love. The closest - but unknown - Australian equivalent is Matt Barton, the last man into qualifying, who in 2014 gave up tennis for six months, and, like Willis, retreated to his local club (in this case, Collaroy) to coach and reboot, while he sorted out his head and his ambitions.
"There's been times in the past where I've questioned myself, and questioned my ability," Barton said. "Playing in the Futures is not fun, you're playing in real average areas, but it's all worth it when you get wins like this at Wimbledon."
At his lowest point, the 24-year-old says he needed to do something other than play competitively, for a while. He, too, lives at home with his parents - "living the dream", as Willis had deadpanned - but there are still bills to pay. All Barton knew at the time was that he needed not to continue with tennis. "But now I'm happy I played again."
As you would be, having just beaten fellow qualifier Albano Olivetti 14-12 in the fifth set of a first-round Wimbledon match played over four hours and three days. Barton flung himself face-down on the turf afterwards, because, well, he hasn't been here before. "I did some stupid dance as well, at the end," said Barton, who advanced to a second-round match against John Isner. "I didn't know what I was doing, I was pretty happy."
Of the whole SW19 experience: "It's pretty surreal, sitting next to all these top players and all these guys you look up to and watch on TV, so it's awesome to rub shoulders with them and I'm really enjoying it and hopefully I can keep it going."
Barton had just been reminded of a funny story told by fellow journeyman John Millman to Fairfax Media recently; of playing in a Futures event in Korea, where the food was so dire and the tournament transport so infrequent that Millman ordered a pizza while watching the final doubles match from courtside, only to watch in disbelief as the delivery man leapt from his tuk-tuk and tried to deliver the order on-court, mid-match.
"In Futures you do get the odd strange thing happening," said Barton. "Me and Millman, we've been buddies and we've been travelling a lot and we've seen some crazy things, so it's just the perseverance that's got us to get these wins."
Millman, 27, will be dining out this Saturday, regardless, after playing former champion and second seed Andy Murray on a big court in the Wimbledon third round. The marvellous battler from Brisbane has never set foot on Centre Court, but has thought it looks "beautiful" from the outside.
As recently as 2013, Millman was working at Discovery Finance in Brisbane while the torn labrum in his shoulder recovered from major surgery. Unique among his brethren in the Wimbledon third round was Millman's commute to a city office wearing a suit and tie and hoping, perhaps, that, eventually, it would be tennis, rather than Mavis from Mooloolaba, that would be calling.
Footnote: As this story was being written, the BBC interrupted its nightly Wimbledon review to report that Willis and his mate Gavin Henderson had won their Coventry League doubles match for the Warwick Boat Club, floodlit in the shadow of the local supermarket. That was just one day after Willis had lost to Federer on Centre Court at the All England Club, after having won $100,000 and an unimaginable level of fame and affection. Count on this, though: whatever the proximity to Tesco/Sainsbury's, this would not have been a gluten/sugar/dairy/alcohol-free night.