Wimbledon dream over for Baltacha

Jun 26 2009 by Paul Behan, Paisley Daily Express

ELENA Baltacha’s Wimbledon dream came to a heartbreaking end yesterday afternoon at SW19.

The 25-year-old Paisley ace, below, was sent crashing out of the tournament when she lost her second round tie with Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens 7-5, 6-1 on court four.

Baltacha – the only British woman to win a singles match at Wimbledon this year – lost her serve late in the first set and Flipkens took full advantage to win the opener with relative ease.

The world number 106 looked a pale imitation of the player who had defeated Ukraine’s Alona Bondarenko earlier in the week as she sought her third straight career victory over her Belgian opponent.

To make matters worse, Baltacha suffered a major wobble in the second set and her service game let her down on numerous occasions.

As a result, Flipkens went into overdrive, racing to a 5-0 lead.

In the sixth game, Baltacha served to save the match.

She won two match points against her opponent to take the game to deuce.

However, Flipkens crept ahead once again and stood on the brink of victory.

Bravely, Baltacha won that point – the third match point against her.

She then went on to win her first service game of the set.

But she only delayed the inevitable as Flipkens then served out the match without really being put under pressure at all.

Despite missing out on a place in the third round at SW19, Baltacha is likely to have accrued enough ranking points to finally take her into the top 100 in the world – a career best – when the latest listings are announced next month.