Baltacha in her 12th appearance at Wimbledon only managed 74 minutes on court to be defeated by a dominant Pennetta 6-4 6-1.
Pennetta had won their two previous matches and on a dry cool afternoon broke serve in the first game, a clear indication of what was to come. Baltacha won two points in that first game and was never able to play herself back into real contention. There were shots and rallies where Baltacha boosted her confidence but the pressure was always on trying to compete at least on level terms. Pennetta allowed her few opportunities.
Pennetta followed up her opening break by capturing Baltacha’s serve in the seventh game to lead 5-2. Immediately Baltacha broke back to 5-3 with a well-constructed attack, finding some weaker parts of the Italian’s game.
Baltacha held serve to love for the only time to pull up to 5-4. But she could not shake Pennetta’s control and the Italian wrapped up the set after 42 minutes.
Following her defeat Baltacha said: "I need to get my ranking up so that I can get myself into the bigger events."
"I've probably missed the cut for the US Open main draw and my main goal now will be to make the cut for the Aussie main draw. I want my No 1 ranking back. With Laura (Robson) and Heather (Watson), they're young and very talented. Realistically am I going to get it? I don't know. But I think in a year and a half, maybe two years, with all the work I have put in hopefully I will be a contender for it."
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