In her comeback from a shoulder injury, Maria Sharapova has walked a tightrope, fighting hard to win matches without the form and fitness produced by the regular rhythms of competition. On Wednesday at Wimbledon, the three-time Grand Slam champion lost her balance.

Unable to overcome a spate of untimely errors, Sharapova dropped her second-round match to Argentina’s Gisela Dulko, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4. Always intense but rarely precise, the 24th-seeded Russian simply couldn’t produce enough quality shots to remain alive in the ladies’ singles draw. The defeat is not a career setback by any means; one should expect a faster, fitter version of Masha in the North American hardcourt season. Nevertheless, a second-round exit from SW19 will disappoint this international icon, who–with better fortunes–would have had a chance to face Victoria Azarenka (fourth round) and Serena Williams (quarterfinals) in the second week of the tournament.

The ultimate verdict on this sun-baked slugfest is that it exposed the limitations in Sharapova’s post-comeback arsenal. Rusty and sluggish due to her 10-month injury-induced layoff, Sharapova valiantly compensated for her lack of match toughness with the mental toughness that has become her trademark. Despite a faulty serve (pun very much intended) and unreliable groundstrokes, Sharapova competed tenaciously and gained enough of a tunnel-vision focus to work through bad patches in matches. Finding the concentration needed to thrive on pressure-packed points, Masha maneuvered her way to four 3-set victories at the French Open before running out of gas in a lopsided quarterfinal loss to Dominika Cibulkova. Having logged some mileage for the first time since her return to the WTA Tour, Sharapova’s outlook at Wimbledon was really rather promising–not in terms of a semifinal run, but certainly with respect to her prospects of reaching the second week at Wimbledon. Now, those dreams are gone, and it’s all because Sharapova’s fighting spirit was eclipsed by surprising misfires at the worst possible moments.

Sharapova, once down a set and 3-0, managed to mount a typical rally when faced with near-certain death. Taking the second set by winning six straight games, the 22-year-old entered the third-set cauldron where she’s thrived throughout her career. At 3-all in the deciding stanza, the smart money had to rest with the proven champion, and not Dulko, the upstart from South America who had reached the second week of a slam only once (at the 2006 French) in 23 appearances.

Unexpectedly, however, the seasoned performer–the woman who claimed the 2004 Wimbledon title–cracked in the heat of a summery English afternoon.

Serving at 3-all, Sharapova missed a sitter forehand near the net and then double-faulted twice to enable Dulko to break at love for a 4-3 advantage. In the following game, Sharapova–given a 15-30 opening on Dulko’s serve–ably constructed a point and merely had to bunt back a backhand volley into the open court. Sharapova is not a good player at the net, but the volley she had to knock off was a volley even a high schooler could have converted. The ball sailed wide off Masha’s racket, and Dulko–given a reprieve–won the next two points to hold for 5-3.

After Sharapova held to make Dulko serve out the match, nerves continued to claim both players, but especially Sharapova. At 5-4, 15-all, the Russian favorite ran down a Dulko drop shot, but once again missed a backhand put-away. Despite the mistake, Sharapova erased two match points with a drop shot and a backhand that clipped the sideline. After a clearly anxious Dulko overcooked an easy forehand on her third match point, Sharapova gained a break point just moments later. But once more, a champion’s knack for flourishing in the face of adversity suddenly proved elusive.

On the break point, Sharapova steadily wore down Dulko with vintage groundstokes. Drawing a series of progressively weaker replies from her South American foe, Sharapova moved in for the kill after Dulko floated back a shot that landed inside the service box. Sharapova wound up and uncorked a backhand. Everyone at Centre Court expected the scoreboard to read 5-all, but when the backhand plunged into the net, Dulko–seemingly doomed to another hard-luck loss in the early rounds of a major–gained one more get-out-of-jail-free card.

The Argentine didn’t waste it.

After wisely using a challenge to gain her fourth match point, Dulko played a steady point to force a Sharapova forehand long. Gisela Dulko finally had reason to celebrate at a Grand Slam, while her defeated opponent simply lacked the fitness or technique needed to complement her warrior-like willpower.

Maria Sharapova will be heard from fairly soon. At this year’s Wimbledon, however, the effects of a long absence from competitive tennis were simply too much to overcome.

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