Baltacha: Defeat to Zheng

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China's Zheng Jie ended the hopes of Elena Baltacha as she came out on top in the battle of the wildcards with a 6-2 7-5 victory in their second round clash at Wimbledon on Wednesday.

Cheered on by a predictably vociferous home crowd on Court Two Baltacha was not short on support, but lacked the know-how of her savvy opponent.

Zheng was quickly into her stride and raced into 4-0 lead as she exposed Baltacha's lack of mobility with some clever drop shots and accurate strokes from the back of the court.

The Briton did secure a break back as she grew into the match, but Zheng immediately wrested back control with a third break of her own in the eighth game to take the opening set.

The second proved a far more competitive affair with Baltacha taking more chances with her groundstrokes and troubling her opponent with some heavy hitting.

Indeed, she claimed the first break to move 3-2 ahead, but once again could not maintain her momentum with Zheng restoring parity in the next game.

However, cutting a more confident character she again broke to lead 5-4 and had the opportunity to serve to take the contest into a deciding set.

But just as previously, the Chinese player's resilience was again apparent as, with Baltacha tightening up slightly, she took the second of two break points to level again at 5-5.

With Zheng holding her serve to edge ahead, Baltacha eventually succumbed under the increasing pressure and lost her next service game as well to crash out of the tournament.