Elena Baltacha and Heather Watson crash out at second hurdle

ELENA Baltacha's French Open campaign came to an end in the second round with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 defeat by Vania King, before Heather Watson also bowed out with a 6-1, 6-3 defeat against 16th seed Kaia Kanepi.

Baltacha had won her first main-draw match on the Paris clay on Tuesday against Sloane Stephens but fellow American King proved just too consistent for the 27-year-old Scot.

Baltacha is renowned for her fighting spirit and, after going 2-0 down, she won four games in a row to take charge of the first set, which she eventually clinched on her fourth set point. The match had been very tight, though, and King responded by immediately taking control of the second set. By the time Baltacha won a game, the American was already 5-0 up, and she was soon back on level terms.

King maintained her grip on the match at the start of the third set, taking a 3-0 lead, and, although Baltacha limited the damage to one break of serve, that was enough for her 22-year-old opponent to secure the win and a third-round meeting with ninth seed Petra Kvitova.

The Scot said: "It was very tough. I knew going into the match that it was going to be very difficult. She's got a good game on clay and she's playing very well. In the first set I played really well. It was tight but I managed to dominate when I needed to. In the second set she really stepped it up and I probably dropped a bit. And in the third she broke me quite early on. That's always quite difficult.

"She was just absorbing my pace and then moving me around. I would say that was probably the big thing that lost me the match."

However, Baltacha was able to reflect on a positive end to the best clay-court season of her career. She added: "Getting 230 points this year over the clay season, that's not bad considering probably the last nine years I only picked up about 50. So I'm very chuffed."

Watson had exceeded expectations by coming through qualifying and then winning her first-round match, and the scoreline yesterday did not reflect the quality of her play.

Kanepi is at a career-high ranking of 16th and she began the match in confident fashion, breaking Watson in her first service game. The 19-year-old is not one to give in but her Estonian opponent just had too much power and experience, clinching victory with a crunching backhand winner.