Qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko hands Maria Sharapova rare first-round loss at Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England - Maria Sharapova came into her Wimbledon match on Tuesday having lost a first-round Grand Slam match only three times in 52 played during her career.

That changed when the 24th-seeded Sharapova, who won the first of her five Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2004, lost her fourth career Grand Slam first-round match against fellow Russian qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko 6-7 (3), 7-6 (3), 6-4.

The loss marked only the seventh time in 36 Grand Slam matches played against Russian compatriots that she suffered a defeat. It also is only the third time she’s lost in 20 Grand Slam matches played against a qualifier.

Sharapova led 7-6, 5-2 in the match when she started to unravel against the 132nd-ranked Diatchenko. Sharapova double-faulted 11 times, including on match point at 30-40 in the 10th game of the third set.

"I definitely had several chances in the match," Sharapova said. "Although not playing my best tennis, I opened up a few doors and was a couple points away from winning this match. Kept, you know, doing that in the third, as well. But just, you know, sometimes you put yourself in a better or winning position, and you don't finish through. That was the case today."

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In all, there were 25 break points in the match, with Sharapova saving seven of 14, while Diatchenko was broken on six of 11 break points faced.

At this year’s other Grand Slams, Sharapova reached the third round of the Australian Open and the quarterfinals of the French Open.

Sharapova has won one title, at Tianjin, China, last October, since she returned to the tour in April 2017 after a 15-month drug suspension for the use of the banned substance meldonium.

The victory marked the first Wimbledon match win for Diatchenko in three matches played here. This is the third time she has won a Grand Slam first-round match in eight played in her career.

"She played all or nothing," Sharapova said of Diatchenko. "She swung away. She played extremely aggressive. I was playing a little bit too defensively for what I should have been doing. Yeah, she was there to win it, and she did."

Diatchenko’s best win of her career was beating Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova, then-ranked 14th, at the 2014 Moscow tournament.

Diatchenko will play Sofia Kenin, 19, a Russian-born, naturalized American in the second round. Kenin defeated Maria Sakkari of Greece 6-4, 1-6, 6-1.