Waiting outside the room was a Hollywood actress, Camilla Belle. Seated inside was the world's highest-earning female athlete, a woman who has become synonymous with racket-swinging glamour, and a close friend of Belle's - Maria Sharapova. But here was Sharapova suddenly claiming that the red-carpet lifestyle isn't really her, doesn't make her happy, and that contrary to every view you might have ever held about her, she is "a very low-key person".
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There is more to her life than pouting under the arc lights, and having a spectacular party in New York this year to celebrate turning 21; Sharapova is just as interested in being at home in Manhattan Beach in California, serving up afternoon tea or home-made mint lemonade to her friends ("I get the lemons from the farmers' market on Tuesdays").
"It's strange for my friends when they see me on TV and in magazines, because the person that they see doing interviews and pictures on the red carpet is not the person that they know," said Sharapova, a between-tournaments wannabe domestic goddess. "The person that my friends know is much more low key than the person that everyone else sees. I'm a very low-key person. I don't need many things. I don't need glamour and attention to be happy. I'm very happy being settled and working my butt off and trying to win grand slams. I want my tennis to speak for everything."
When the gangly, 17-year-old Sharapova beat Serena Williams on Wimbledon's Centre Court in 2004 to win the Venus Rosewater Dish, she immediately became an international brand. And so the received wisdom about Sharapova is that her life is measured out in photo-shoots, parties and premieres. Yet Sharapova, the reigning Australian Open champion, does not consider her life to be one of unbridled glamour. Nor does she want it to be. She turned down a cameo role on the television show Desperate Housewives, on the not unreasonable grounds that she isn't desperate and isn't a wife.
"The worst thing about my life is not being able to see my friends and family for a long period. Living from hotel to hotel, it's sometimes a nightmare. There have been numerous times when I've woken up in a hotel room and I've forgotten which city I'm in. So I'll be phoning people at 2am to ask which city I'm in," said Sharapova, wearing a baby-blue dress and with her fingernails painted a vampish dark colour.
"A lot of people think my job is very glamorous. Don't get me wrong, when you're successful, there are lots of amazing things you can get to do. But there's a lot of work that you have to put in to get there, when you have to grind, and there are times when there are parties I can't go to because I'm an athlete and you have to be professional. Those are the sacrifices that you have to make."
Dealing with her fame doesn't always come easily. "I still find my celebrity weird - it's always weird, you know, when I see my image on the cover of a magazine. That's very, very strange. I remember for a while I had been getting a lot of praise from people, but I never felt as though I deserved it until I had won grand slams and held the world No 1 ranking. And then I thought, 'OK, all that talk, I understand it now'. But before then it was just random.
"I do get star struck myself. I remember meeting Michael Jordan one time at the airport. He came up to me and asked me if I was 'that tennis player'. I was so nervous that I could hardly speak. I said, 'Uh, yeah, I play tennis'. He's a great athlete and an inspiration, and a really nice person as well."
Sharapova is sufficiently self-aware to appreciate that she is not everyone's cup of tea. That much was obvious during this summer's French Open, when a crowd of hostile Parisians booed and whistled her off the court.
"But I can't really control that," she said. "The person that they see is through television, or through interviews or pictures, so the majority of the people looking at me from the comfort of their home aren't having a conversation with me or getting to know me. So that's normal.
"People are always going to have opinions, and you're never going to make everyone happy. That's fine with me. As much as I try not to have opinions about people, you do because that's human nature.
"The best thing about my life is that I've had the opportunity to do many more things that I wouldn't have done if I was just in school or something. I absolutely love that because if it was just 'tennis, tennis, tennis' I would get mad. I've met some amazing people and been a part of some great projects, and taken care of my family and my grandparents financially."
Sharapova has kept the same tight unit of friends. "I have only four or five good friends, one I've known since I was nine or 10. It's tough just to meet people and become really good friends with them. My friends sometimes think I'm a bit dorky. If I drop something it's like, 'Yup, very typical of me'. At times, I'm clumsy.
"I love making fun of myself. I do it all the time. I was doing that in the restaurant the other night," she said, and the very thought of mocking herself made her collapse into laughter again.
Returning to south-west London gives Sharapova more of a buzz than the shopaholic's rush of buying a new handbag. "When I get into the Wimbledon village, it's always so quaint," she said. "Wimbledon has a great tradition, and it's good to be part of that, and I've been fortunate in that I have been part of the Wimbledon tradition and the history, by getting my name on that plate - and my goal is to hold it a few more times.
"It's still a thrill going back and looking at my name on the list of previous winners. That's the No 1 thrill. When I go back and walk through the hallways there, I always go to take a look at myself. I'm so excited, I'm like a kid in a zoo after spotting an animal."
