ELENA BALTACHA salvaged home pride with a tremendously gutsy win over Alona Bondarenko to become the only British woman to reach the second round of Wimbledon.
The British number two came from a set down to claim a 3-6 6-3 6-4 victory – her fifth win at Wimbledon.
The victory went some way to sparing any further blushes on an otherwise embarrassing day for home players.
Half an hour into the match, which did not go on Court One until after 7pm, it looked like Britain’s Wimbledon fortunes had slumped to an all-time low 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 yesterday 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.
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 made hard work of a second victory in three meetings with an opponent 73 places higher in the rankings.
Baltacha produced 22 winners and a staggering total of 40 unforced errors, statistics that underline the erratic nature of her performance. She 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 clearly needed.
Baltacha wasted three break points in the seventh game before producing a crashing forehand down the line to secure a second break.
She showed a sign of nerves with two double faults as she served for the second set and was broken.
But she broke her opponent for a third time 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 led 2-0 and 40- 0 in the deciding set but faltered again and squandered two match points before Bondarenko put a forehand wide, to end a dramatic match which lasted for four minutes over two hours.
Baltacha labelled her fifth Wimbledon victory as the best of her grand- slam career because it will secure direct entry into the US Open in August.
"Alona was in very good form," she said. "It was a very big win for me and a very important one because I knew it would take me into the draw in the US Open."
