Baltacha learns how to play the grinder game

Life after Wimbledon: The champagne has been put away, now it's back to the daily scuffle for ranking points

As the crow flies, Felixstowe is some 90 miles from Wimbledon. But as the tennis ball travels, it is light years distant, a journey of Mars (or, perhaps more appropriately, Venus) dimensions. Elena Baltacha made that journey last week, from the glitz and eye-popping prizes at the All England Club to the charm and quaintness of a satellite event on the Suffolk coast. The sort of place where it is necessary to dirty the knees, and sometimes bloody them, in the unceasing quest for ranking points, cash and fame.

There were groans, screams, imprecations and bad language emanating from the grass courts of the Felixstowe Lawn Tennis Club as low-ranked lasses pursued their goals at a $25,000 women's circuit event. Among them Baltacha stood out. Like her striking, ever-present mother, Olga, a former international pentathlete, Elena has a bearing which announces, just short of her 19th birthday, the presence of star material. Resemblance to the early Mary Pierce is uncanny: big serve, powerful build, even the sort of vision which requires glasses or lenses. There is a lengthy road to traverse if the Grand Slam achievements of Pierce are to be emulated, but Baltacha made a start when at last year's Wimbledon, and on Centre Court what's more, she delivered a serve of 120 miles an hour, a speed exceeded only by the Williams sisters.

This year, Elena reintroduced herself to the general public by parlaying a wild card into a place in the third round and eliminating a top tour pro, Amanda Coetzer, along the way. The points gained by that have lifted her almost a hundred places in the rankings, just inside the top 200. The journey is under way.

But first comes the need to return to what Baltacha's coach, Alan Jones, calls "the real world", the world of satellite tennis. "After the circus of Wimbledon, Elena is a bit nearer her destiny," said Jones, as he watched his charge power to her first senior title by defeating Ireland's Kelly Liggan 4-6 6-2 6-3 at Felixstowe. "But this is where people are going to be trying to beat the arse off her, where she has to get better on the day-in, day-out grind."

Baltacha concurs. "What happened at Wimbledon was superb, I learned so much and it was a great boost for my confidence. But I still have loads to learn. I still have tournaments like this that I have to do well in. OK, my ranking is now 199, but that doesn't make me top 10."

The Felixstowe area is where Baltacha spent her earliest years in Britain after leaving Kiev at the age of five with her mother, brother and father, Sergei, a Russian international footballer who was joining Ipswich. Sergei's career next took him into Scottish football and it was in Perth that Elena first developed, as a 10-year-old, an interest in tennis when she realised she could serve the ball hard and had an attitude to match her power. For the past three years, as an outstanding prospect, she has been based in Enfield, sharing an apartment with Olga, and under the wing of the Lawn Tennis Association, who subsidise the cost of coaching by Jones and his assistant (and former pupil) Jo Durie, the last British woman to make it into the top 10.

Jones recalled those early days: "When Bally first arrived in London, Jo and I looked at this girl and wondered, 'Where do we start?' She had lots of raw talent, but she didn't know what a rally was, she had no discipline and she wouldn't apply logic to her game. From that beginning, from having no ranking, here she is inside the top 200. From a coach's perspective, that's exciting. What I have to guard against is the expectation running ahead of herself."

What impressed Jones most about Baltacha at Wimbledon was not beating Coetzer but her first-round victory over a qualifier, Maria Vento-Kabchi. "She won that match ugly," said Jones, "and she has rarely won ugly in the past. She always wanted to be spectacular. She has to learn to grind and be more tolerant and patient. Now she is willing to do that. What is exciting, apart from those Wimbledon wins, is that Bally has beaten eight other players who are in the top 100."

Baltacha is only just back on course after four months of ill-health. Last November she went down with chicken pox, and then a serious bout of food poisoning. She came back to tennis in late January but immediately contracted tonsillitis. Two recurrences of that illness meant she could not play again until the spring, the season of clay-court tennis.

"She is not good on clay yet," Jones explained. "All her best wins so far have come indoors or on grass. She hasn't yet cut the mustard outside when it's a bit windy or the courts are a bit slower."

Baltacha picked up £19,000 at Wimbledon for her wins in the singles and mixed doubles (with Lee Childs). Reconnection with reality is the prize money for the Felixstowe winner: £2,012. But all earnings are welcome as Elena saves for the deposit on her own flat and the chance to drive around in something other than her mother's ancient Peugeot. Already well sponsored in the matter of clothing and equipment, she is unashamedly angling for someone to offer her a car: "I wouldn't mind a Merc, Porsche or Ferrari," she smiled.

What Baltacha already possesses in abundance is the work ethic. "That comes from myself, not my parents with their sport background, because I want to do well," she said. "If I throw my racket it's because I want to do well. I fight, that's part of me. I must say I don't like losing, but you learn from defeat. You learn more from that than victories."

Neither Baltacha nor her coach will set goals. "If you don't reach them it can be very disappointing," said Elena, while Jones insisted: "I just want her to keep working, keep improving, keep understanding her way forward. My three-year schedule for her has been ripped up after Wimbledon. All I know is that if she keeps developing as she is, there are certain destinies. But I will not put a figure on it.

"This girl is exciting. She is also still green. She is a puppy, but after Wimbledon the puppy has teeth."