WIMBLEDON, England — Imagine a pitcher in baseball retiring all 27 batters and then not learning he had thrown a perfect game until he had reached the clubhouse. That is what happened Saturday to Yaroslava Shvedova, who played a flawless set of tennis, the best by a woman in at least 44 years, and did not even realize it.


“I was just playing every point and every game,” Shvedova said with a shrug.


She won every point, all 24 of them, and every game, all 6 of them, in that first set against Sara Errani. The Golden Set, as it is called, is the sport’s equivalent of an urban legend — had anyone ever done it, or is it just a myth?


Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Bjorn Borg never won a Golden Set. Neither had any woman since the dawn of the Open era in 1968 — let alone Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova or Serena Williams — until a 24-year-old doubles specialist from Kazakhstan blasted forehand tracers and backhand passing shots and volley winners on a windy Saturday at Wimbledon. Only one other professional is known to have won 24 straight points — Bill Scanlon, in the first round of a 1983 tournament in Delray Beach, Fla.


“Never lost a point?” said Sam Querrey, an American who accomplished something remarkable in his own right Saturday, losing the second-longest match in Wimbledon history, a five-setter in 5 hours 31 minutes to Marin Cilic. The longest, played two years ago, involved John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. “Amazing,” Querrey added. “To me, that’s almost as incredible as Isner-Mahut.”


Consider all that can go wrong on a tennis court, especially on slick grass, especially with a blustery wind whipping around. The ball can strike the racket frame. It could sail just wide or long, missing the chalk by centimeters. It could nick the net tape, then bounce on the same side of the court. A shoelace could come untied. For 15:42 on Saturday (according to an ESPN replay), none of that happened: Shvedova put the ball into play 44 times without making an error.


On the first point of the fourth game, Shvedova clipped the top of the net with her backhand service return. It stayed airborne, and Shvedova ended the point with a thunderous backhand. Her biggest threat to perfection came three points later, when Errani launched a defensive lob that seemed to be soaring over her head. Turning sideways, Shvedova reached up and behind her, cracking a sky hook of an overhead that would have made Jimmy Connors proud.


“It was incredible,” said Errani, who was dumbfounded when Shvedova cracked a 108-mile-per-hour serve up the T — on a second serve on her way to winning, 6-0, 6-4. “I mean, you never do that, but you’re so confident that you try and everything’s going in.”


Here might be a good place to stress that this was the third round at Wimbledon, against a formidable opponent, and not some Sunday breakfast league.


At the French Open, Errani, seeded 10th here, lost in the final to Maria Sharapova. In her first two matches at Wimbledon, she had lost a total of six games. On Saturday, when Shvedova opened the second set by netting a forehand, the crowd at Court 3 clapped and cheered.


“I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ ” Shvedova said. “I even smiled. I was like, ‘O.K., they want to see a good match.’ ”


That is all she thought the fans wanted. And then her coach, Emiliano Redondi, cornered Shvedova as she was cooling down afterward.


“I was like, ‘Really?’ ” Shvedova said. “Like, not making unforced errors or not losing points? Not losing a point. So it was incredible.”


News of her feat gradually spread throughout the All England Club. Querrey called the Golden Set a bigger stunner than Lukas Rosol’s upset of Rafael Nadal. “I’m, like, speechless,” Querrey said. Serena Williams, her next opponent, sounded impressed, though initially unclear.


“I immediately thought, ‘She won all four in a row and the Olympics?’ ” Williams said, referring to the four Grand Slam tournaments. “I thought that wasn’t possible. That’s the only golden thing I know of.”