Samantha Stosur became the highest seeded casualty so far at this year's Wimbledon when she suffered a 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 second round defeat by Dutch player Arantxa Rus to end Australia's interest in the singles.
The US Open champion, seeded five, lost six games in a row to surrender the first set before reeling off six on the spin to take the match into a decider.
The wildly fluctuating nature of the match continued as she fell behind 3-0 in the third set before digging in.
She saved two match points trailing 5-3 and then looked poised to level at 5-5 as she led 40-15 on serve but then crumbled on Court One, ending the match with a sliced backhand into the bottom of the net.
Defeat continued Stosur's dismal record at the grasscourt grand slam, where she has never gone beyond the third round in nine previous attempts.
It also completes a miserable tournament for Australian tennis. Of the five women entered into the main singles draw only Stosur managed to win a match while the men fared even worse with all four representatives losing in the first round.
