ELENA Baltacha salvaged home pride with a tremendously gutsy win over Ukraine's world No 33 Alona Bondarenko to become the only British woman to reach the second round of Wimbledon.
The British No 2 and world No 106 came from a set down to claim a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory – her fifth win at Wimbledon – to finish on a high note what had otherwise been an embarrassing day for the host nation.
Half an hour into the match, which d
id not go on Court One until after 7pm, it looked like Britain's Wimbledon fortunes had slumped to an all-time low at with the worst-ever showing by home players in the Open era. Anne Keothavong, the top British woman, failed to win a set of her match and there were also defeats today for Georgie Stoop, Katie O'Brien, Alex Bogdanovic, Joshua Goodall and Dan Evans, while Mel South, Laura Robson and James Ward all crashed out on the opening day.
Keothavong, who had been expected to post a British victory, lost 7-5 6-2 to Austrian Patricia Mayr, while Bogdanovic, who went down 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 to 20th seed Tomas Berdych, has now lost all eight matches at Wimbledon.
The defeated Britons had the consolation of £10,750 cheques while the reward for Baltacha will be a second-round meeting with Belgium's Kirsten Flipkens, who put out 30th seed Agnes Szavay of Hungary in straight sets.
The 25-year-old Scot of Ukrainian parentage said: "It was so lovely. I really tried hard to control my emotion because everyone was getting up, everyone was clapping. I had goose pimples pretty much everywhere, the hair on the back of my neck was standing up.
"I kept thinking I'm going to win this, I'm going to win this, there's no way I'm going to lose this. No way. I kept thinking of match point."
She said it was a shame the other British women were out but defended their performances saying: "It's so difficult. We've all had such a great year. We're all fighting to get up there. It was difficult. Everyone performed well and just lost out.
"I knew I was the last one going on, the last hope. I was really chuffed that I managed to pull in out of the bag."
The Enfield-based wild card fell to her knees with tears in her eyes as she won the third set in front of an ecstatic crowd late in the evening. Baltacha said she would spend the day looking after her body and getting physio before adding: "I don't even know who I play. Can somebody tell me?"
On learning she will play Flipkens she said she had beaten her twice before. "It's another difficult match but I'm looking forward to it. I think I've got a good opportunity without a doubt."
She said she would be getting away from Wimbledon "just to chill out and sleep in late". She will probably spend the day with her father Sergei, the former USSR and St Mirren footballer, who lives in the area, she said.
Her mother, who lives in Glasgow, missed the end of her match because she had to fly back. Baltacha comes form a sporting family – her mother was an Olympic athlete and her brother Sergei jnr also played for St Mirren and was capped by Scotland Under-21s.
Baltacha showed all of her remarkable character, as well as bags of stamina, before adding to her tally of four wins at Wimbledon, where she reached the third round as a teenager in 2002. She produced 22 winners and a staggering total of 40 unforced errors, statistics that underline the erratic nature of her performance
Baltacha dropped her serve for a second time to lose the first set 6-3 but dug deep in the second set and broke her opponent to love in the fifth game to give her the confidence she needed and went on to take the set 6-3 and level the match. As Baltacha went up a gear, Bondarenko appeared to lose her focus and it was she who began to come with the unforced errors. Baltacha squandered two match points before Bondarenko put a forehand wide, to end a dramatic match which lasted for two hours, four minutes.
A tearful Anne Keothavong admitted things "just fell apart" after surrendering tamely to a player ranked almost 30 places below her. She took a break from the press conference to compose herself in private.
Less of a surprise was Bogdanovic's first-round exit, his eighth in a row at Wimbledon. "Obviously, it's tough," he said. "I come here every year expecting to win. This is obviously the eighth year and I can't get past the first round. All you can do is just go out there and do your best."
British men's No 2 Josh Goodall suffered a heart-breaking five-set loss to experienced Frenchman Michael Llodra.
However, Goodall received a standing ovation for his 4-6, 7-6 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 defeat in a match which began on Monday night and took three hours and 14 minutes on court to complete.
The full article contains 881 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
