Tennis: Baltacha blown away by power of second seed Safina

Baltacha simply could not cope with the groundstrokes of last year's runner-up to lose 6-1, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena.

It meant the Scot was unable to beat her best-ever result at a grand slam after also reaching the third round at Melbourne Park in 2005 and at Wimbledon two years ago.

While she was outgunned by a player who spent most of last season as world No.1, 26-year-old Baltacha has proved that she belongs inside the world's top 100. The Kiev-born right-hander reached a career-high ranking of 83 last week and that is set to climb after her efforts in Melbourne, which included a second-round win over 30th seed Kateryna Bondarenko.

Baltacha was never truly in the hunt today in the face of some fearsome strokeplay from the 23-year-old Safina. The Russian plundered 19 winners as she went for her shots from both wings, leaving Baltacha a redundant figure at times as she could only hope Safina missed the lines. She rarely did and broke all three of Baltacha's service games in an opening set that lasted 26 minutes.

Baltacha responded by winning her first service game of the second set to love, but then conceded the break to go 3-1 down. It was all Safina needed and she took another break of serve before closing out the match in 57 minutes.

Safina will next play fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko, who defeated Italy's Roberta Vinci 7-5, 7-6 (7-4).

Baltacha was disappointed she could not take more than three games off Safina but said: "It was difficult. It was a great experience for me to play the world number two.

I've got to look on it in a very positive way. It's just the start of 2010 and I've got the rest of the year to build on it."

Justine Henin fought back from a set down against 27th seed Alisa Kleybanova to progress to the last 16 with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory in two hours and 20 minutes. Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko shocked eight seed Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-3.

Britain's Laura Robson, 16, moved into the third round of the women's doubles as she continued her partnership with Australian Sally Peers to beat 12th-seeded pair Chia-Jung Chuang and Kveta Peschke 6-3, 6-4.