It was arguably The Sunday Project’s coup of the year – a one-on-one interview between star recruit Lisa Wilkinson and tennis ace Serena Williams, yet once again the show failed to pull an audience last night.

Despite Williams’ reluctance to answer any questions about her recent US Open meltdown and Wilkinson’s admirable persistence, last night’s episode struggled to just 404,000 viewers. It was Ten’s most watched show of the night and network programmers must be seriously considering the Sunday variant of the successful weekday format.

The calamity meant Ten’s overall audience share was a paltry 10.9 per cent, putting it in distant fourth position.

Nine was the Sunday victor with a healthy 34.1 per cent, Seven had 30.3 per cent, the ABC posted 17.8 per cent and SBS had to settle for 6.8 per cent.

As we’ve come to expect, The Block did the business for Nine with an impressive 1.263 million. Nine’s other highlights included its 6pm news bulletin with 937,000, 60 Minutes with 715,000 and City Of Evil with 364,000.

Seven’s news bulletin was its most-watched program with an impressive 1.019 million. Sunday Night pulled in 696,000 and The Story Of The Royals had 493,000.

The ABC’s evening ran thus: 7pm news (705,000), Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road Adventure (576,000), Rake (432,000) and Vera (268,000).

SBS’s best was Rome’s Invisible City with a difficult-to-see 180,000.