Eugenie Bouchard fell to world No. 20 Belinda Bencic in her opening match at Rogers Cup presented by National Bank on Tuesday evening. Bencic outlasted Bouchard in a hard-fought three setter 6-0, 5-7, 6-2.
It looked as though Bouchard would be off the court within the hour after Bencic handed her a bagel in the first set. But with the strong support of the home crowd behind her, Bouchard managed to save match point as she broke Bencic to stay alive in the second set to make it 4-5. The Canadian was in fine fighting form as she won the next three straight games to take the second set and force a third. But Bouchard was unable to hold her momentum in the third set as Bencic broke early and held on for the victory. “I feel like I started out a little bit rusty in a sense,” said Bouchard, who hadn’t played a match since her first-round loss at Wimbledon in June.
“I haven’t had a lot of match play recently, but I was able to raise my game, and I think it was pretty competitive out there after that first set. So I’m pleased with my performance.” Bencic advances to face world No. 5 Caroline Wozniacki in the second round, while Bouchard will next compete at the Premier 5 tournament in Cincinnati next week. “I’m using these next couple weeks as preparation ultimately for the US Open,” Bouchard said.
“But I’m going to go into each week with some goals to just try to perform well and play good tennis. I want to kind of build on at least this match today and try to keep building with hopefully lots of matches in the next couple of weeks.”
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