LONDON (Reuters) - Eugenie Bouchard's hopes of emulating her 2014 run to the final were hit for six by former professional cricket player Ashleigh Barty in the second round of Wimbledon on Thursday.
The Canadian, whose ranking has fallen to 188th from a career-high five in 2014, had to contest three qualifying matches just to make into the main draw at the All England Club.
The effort of winning four matches over the past week to get into round two appeared to have taken its toll on Bouchard as she could do little to stop 17th seed Barty storming back from 5-2 down in the second set to seal a 6-4 7-5 victory.
Bouchard even had a set point at 5-3 up on Barty's serve but the Australian, who took a two-year break from tennis in 2014 for a stint in professional cricket, wriggled out of that corner and won five games in a row to finish off her 24-year-old opponent.
The win carried Barty into the third round here for the first time. She will next face either 14th seed Daria Kasatkina or Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva.
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Clare Fallon)
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