Wimbledon Championships
Venue: All England Club, London Date: 21 June - 4 July
Coverage: Live on BBC One and Two, HD, Red Button, BBC Sport website (UK only), Radio 5 live, 5 live sports extra; live text commentary online and on mobile phones.
Full details of BBC coverage
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By David Ornstein
BBC Sport at Wimbledon |
 Keothavong reached a career-high ranking of 48 in 2009
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Anne Keothavong and Jamie Baker begin their Wimbledon campaigns on Tuesday but the Britons will go into their first-round matches in differing moods.
Women's number three Keothavong faces Anastasia Rodionova at 1200 BST and is followed on Court 12 by men's number three Baker, who plays Andreas Beck.
"This is a winnable match and I intend to do it," Keothavong told BBC Sport.
Wildcard Baker said: "I'd be a fool to expect to win but the pressure is all on him and I'll give it my best shot."
The pair will hope to help raise British spirits after an opening day that saw four home players crash out of the tournament.
Women's number one Elena Baltacha, 52 in the world, was expected to beat 76th-ranked Petra Martic but lost 2-6 7-5 6-3 - failing to capitalise on the chance to serving for the match in the process.
Katie O'Brien, Laura Robson and Melanie South also suffered first-round defeats to leave Keothavong and Heather Watson, who is third on Court 18 against Italy's Romina Sarina Oprandi, as the last remaining British women.
"I didn't see any of Elena's match but I'm sure it was a tough, tough loss for her and she'll just have to move on," said Keothavong, who has reached the second round on only two of her nine Wimbledon appearances.
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"I don't think it really puts extra pressure on me, I'm looking forward to my match. It's going to be a tough one but I hope the crowd will help me and get behind me because Rodionova can be quite temperamental.
"I know all eyes will be on me and that sort of pressure should be a privilege. There is pressure this fortnight and, playing in front of my home crowd, I want to show people what I'm capable of."
Keothavong has met Australian Rodionova once previously, losing 6-1 3-6 6-3 on the Miami hard courts in 2008.
The 26-year-old Londoner rose to a career-high ranking of 48 in the world a year later but was then sidelined for six months with the second cruciate knee ligament injury of her career.
She is now ranked 155th, 81 places below Rodionova, but remains confident of progressing to the second round.
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I'm a better player than what my ranking suggests at the moment. Having spent six months out of the game it's going to take time for me to get my ranking back up there, but I have no doubt I will
Anne Keothavong
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A year ago Keothavong came into the grass-court season off the back of a humiliating 6-0 6-0 defeat by Dinara Safina at the French Open and then made a tearful exit against Patricia Mayr, a player ranked 21 places below her, in round one of Wimbledon.
"I've worked so hard over the past year to get myself fit and have this opportunity, to be out there with the best players in the world competing in this environment," said Keothavong. "To win would mean so much, it would make all the hard work well worth it.
"I'm a better player than my ranking suggests at the moment. Having spent six months out of the game it's going to take time for me to get my ranking back up there, but I have no doubt I will.
"I feel my tennis is better now than it was this time last year - I don't think I handled things very well after my 2009 French Open loss the my emotions came out at Wimbledon.
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Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, I know I can compete with guys inside the top 100
Jamie Baker
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"But coming back from a serious knee injury for the second time has given me a greater appreciation of the fact that I'm doing a job I love. I'm relaxed, happy and raring to go."
Baker faces an altogether tougher task in his first ever meeting with Germany left-hander Beck, ranked 78th in the world.
The 23-year-old Scot saw his ranking plummet to almost 1,000 after contracting a life-threatening illness in 2008 but he has battled back to reach number 259 and is viewing Wimbledon as a building block.
"Regardless of what happens on Tuesday, I know I can compete with guys inside the top 100," Baker, the only British man to receive a wildcard from the All England Club, told BBC Sport.
"So it's a question of taking that level of tennis into the matches that I'll need to play on the Challenger tour to actually get into these tournaments on a week-to-week basis. That's the main priority.
"I'm proud of myself to have got back into this position pretty quickly but Beck is over 150 places above me in the rankings so I've got to be realistic. For me, it's more to do with the performance."
Baker, who is one of only two British men in the main draw alongside fellow Scot Andy Murray, said he would draw inspiration from how close Alejandro Falla came to beating world number one and defending champion Roger Federer on day one.
"Seeing Falla take two sets off Federer gives me hope," he added. "It's just me and Andy representing the nation but I don't feel pressure because nearly every other player in the draw is ranked way above me.
"Everyone will look at me and think I'm a good draw so, in that sense, I have nothing to lose. The pressure is on Beck.
"It's certainly not the worst draw I could've got. It's a match I can get my teeth into. He's a big-serving lefty so he's going to hit a lot of winners and has a lot of power. But he's not a Nadal, Verdasco, a Soderling or a Federer, so you never know."
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