Suffolk's Elena bows out on first day of French Open

Suffolk tennis player Elena Baltacha has been knocked out of the French Open on the first day.

The British Women's number one from Ipswich faced a tough opening match against the World number six Samantha Stosur. Baltacha found the Australian too tough, going down 6-4, 6-0.

Afterwards Baltacha said, "I knew it was going to be a difficult match. I knew as well that if I played really well, maybe she had a bit of an off day, then potentially maybe I would have had a chance (but) I knew I would have to play a very, very big match.

"First set I felt like I was kind of in it; obviously I crawled my way back to 5-4. I didn't particularly play a great service game, but then you've got to remember that I did play one of the best clay-court players in the world so it was a big ask.

"Then she went up a couple of levels, a couple of gears, and she was just too good in the second set.

"She played unbelievable in the second set. She really let loose.

"Obviously with such shape that she uses, if you drop anything just a bit short then she really takes advantage of it.

"She wants to run around that backhand and spank that forehand. She uses this really well. That was the thing that I really tried to be careful of, really try and pull out wide. But it was very difficult when you have such shape coming at you'.