London - 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 interested 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 grass-court 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.