(REUTERS) – Britons Laura Robson and Elena Baltacha both bowed out of the Wimbledon second round after narrowly losing to seeds yesterday.
Maria Sharapova overcame Robson and a partisan crowd on Number One court to reach the third round, with the Russian former champion winning 7-6, 6-3 but the 17-year-old Robson, world number 254, delighted the home fans by roaring into a 4-1 lead in the first set.
Fifth seed Sharapova grew increasingly tetchy as the crowd sensed a huge upset but she fought back to force a tiebreak which she won 7-4.
Left-hander Robson continued to produce the odd brilliant winner but she could not live with Sharapova’s power and the Russian completed victory in one hour 48 minutes.
British number one Baltacha suffered an agonising 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 defeat to 20th seed Shuai Peng in the Wimbledon second round. Baltacha thrilled the Court 18 crowd in a topsy-turvy encounter that lasted over two hours, but eventually found herself outlasted by China’s Shuai.
Having won the first set, mistakes started to creep in, and the world number 68 finished with 29 unforced errors to her opponent’s six.
Top seed Caroline Wozniacki sped into the third round with a crushing 6-1, 6-3 win over Virginie Razzano.
The Dane, seeking her first Grand Slam title, was never troubled on Court Two, overpowering her French opponent in all departments and sealing the victory after 66 minutes on her fifth match point with a service winner.
Also in the second round, former finalist Marion Bartoli dropped the opening set to Spain’s Lourdes Dominguez Lino before coming through 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.
In the biggest shock of the third round so far, second seed Vera Zvonareva lost 6-2, 6-3 to Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova in the third round.
The 23-year-old Pironkova who was seeded at 32, gained some revenge for her defeat by Russian Zvonareva in last year’s semi-finals with a clinical display in which she made only five unforced errors to complete the victory in one hour 17 minutes.
Highly-rated German Andrea Petkovic was upset by the unseeded Ksenia Pervak 6-4, 7-6, while Nadia Petrova eased past Kateryna Bondarenko 6-3, 6-2, and eighth seed Petra Kvitova upstage Roberta Vinci 6-3, 6-3.
Meanwhile, three-time runner-up Andy Roddick was sent tumbling out of the Wimbledon third round 7-6, 7-6, 6-4 by Spain’s Feliciano Lopez.
The American eighth seed started in a fiery mood under rare south London sunshine, reeling off a string of aces but after an exchange of breaks in the first set he lost his way in the tiebreak.
World number 44 Lopez took confidence from seizing the initiative and also shone in the second set tiebreak as the two big servers otherwise cancelled each other out on Centre Court, before Lopez sealed a famous straight-sets victory when Roddick fired wide.
In the second round, seventh-seed David Ferrer completed a five-set win over Ryan Harrison 6-7, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, while young Australian Bernard Tomic also had to go the distance against Igor Andreev, coming through 4-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-1.
Eleventh seed Jurgen Melzer also got the better of Dmitry Tursunov 6-3, 2-6, 7-6, 7-6 to take his place in the last 32.