Baltacha hitting fine form

Baltacha hitting fine form

British number one Elena Baltacha edged out third seed Julia Goerges at the Texas Open as she continued her US Open preparations.

Baltacha came from a set down to win 2-6 7-5 7-6 (7/3) in a match lasting two and a half hours to make the third round.

Sixth seed Shahar Peer suffered a 6-2 6-4 defeat by Johanna Larsson in Dallas.

The Israeli produced four double faults as she crashed out.

Irina-Camelia Begu, seeded eighth, went through, beating Gisela Dulko 6-4 6-3.

In a first-round match, Magdalena Rybarikova served up 11 aces and seven double faults to beat Aravane Rezai 4-6 6-2 6-1.

Irish highs

Meanwhile, Ireland's Connor Niland made a strong start to his bid to qualify for the main draw of back-to-back grand slams at the US Open on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old from Limerick eased through his opening qualifying match by beating Slovakia's Pavol Cervenak 6-1 6-4.

Niland, ranked 199 in the world, became just the second Irishman in the open era to reach the main draw at Wimbledon earlier this year, before losing his first-round match to Adrian Mannarino in five sets.