Another unlucky day for Andrea Petkovic, who suffered an early exit from the Wimbledon Championships at the hands of Elena Vesnina, with a final 7-5, 6-3 scoreline. Petkovic had been only one of the many seeds that saw their campaign ending in this Thursday of upsets.

After a balanced first set, in which the 32nd seed took the lead, but gave it up by serving for the set, a bad fall from the German made it easier for Vesnina to close out the first set and then the match, without giving up her serve. 

Petkovic already has a long story of injuries behind her; today’s fall didn’t prevent her from keep playing, but it made difficult for her to fight back on Vesnina’s solid service games, which eventually cost her the match.

Andrea Petkovic has yet to reach a major’s third round this year. The last time Vesnina had gone past the second round in singles at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club had been in 2009, although she had reached the final twice in doubles, in 2010 pairing with Vera Zvonareva, and in 2015 with Ekaterina Makarova.

Petkovic falls and loses a balanced first set

The first set started with quick games, with the German starting aggressive and gaining an immediate advantage by breaking the Russian game to love. The Russian immediately reacted, and after wasting a 30-0 advantage by hitting twice in the net, she gained a chance to break back and converted it.

Vesnina then advanced with an easy hold, pushing on the rallies with her serve; however, she couldn’t steal a single point from the German’s following service game.

Back on serve, the Russian had been pressured by her opponent’s returns and quickly fell 15-40 down. She tried to save the first break point with a volley, but the ball stopped at the net, giving the German another crucial lead.

This time, the 28-year-old didn’t let it slip from her hands; trailed by Vesnina until 40-40, she put pressure on the rally forcing her opponent to hit the ball out, and then closed the game with an ace, consolidating her lead. Three comfortable holds from both players followed, with Petkovic near to gain a set point during the ninth game, on Vesnina’s serve. The Russian avoided the risk with two good serves that granted her an important hold.

By serving from the match, the German started badly, with a double fault, and another error from the 28-year-old helped the Russian to gain two chances to break back; she converted the second one to level off to a 5-5 scoreline.

At the end of the following game, with Vesnina serving to take the lead, Petkovic slipped on the court trying to return the ball and was forced to walk at the bench and call a medical time-out. Though she felt able to return in play after receiving the medical assistance, the unfortunate fall cost her the first set, as she was broken to love by Vesnina right back on game. The Russian won the first set with a 7-5 scoreline.

Vesnina rushes ahead and claimed the match

Although able to compete, the effects of the fall affected Petkovic’s play, as she suffered her opponent’s solid service games.

The second set started with a neat game from the Russian, who hit three aces and a winner to book the first game against a struggling Petkovic.

The German showed a better performance during her turn to serve; after losing the first point, she hit some good first serves to claim the control of the rally and win the game. She seemed to gain the momentum, as she went immediately 40-0 up on Vesnina’s following service game and gaining another break point after Vesnina had leveled the score to 40-all. A solid play on serve from the Russian eventually prevailed, and she held her game with two strong first serves.

From 30-all, the German hit a double-fault in her following game to gift her opponent a break point right away. Despite she saved it, she couldn’t convert her following chances to hold, and an unforced error hit on Vesnina’s second break point granted the Russian a very important lead in the set.

From then on, all the German could do was holding her own service games, saving two more break points in the eighth game, but without gaining any more chances to win the break back and re-open the games in the match.

Vesnina only needed to hold her own service games, and with another good game on serve, she successfully put herself 40-0 up while serving from the set; she converted the first match point to win the set 6-3 and advance to the third round.

A good consistency on the serve for Petkovic - with 80 per cent of first serves in - allowed her to kept battling during the second set, despite the injury-related problems. The good consistency showed from Vesnina as well in both first and second serve complicated the German’s way to a come back, and granted the Russian the eventual win, the first in six years against Petkovic, and the first on a major tournament (they had already met once at 2010 French Open and 2015 US Open, both won by the German).

Vesnina will meet Julia Boserup next; the American qualifier advanced to the third round after the retirement of an injured Belinda Bencic.